There's A Secret Hid Away

THERE'S
SECRET
HID AMY

Memories of unusual experiences
and mysteries in Southern Africa
and African isles; strange tales and
legends and unrecorded adventures;
and people who crossed the author's
path and left him wondering.

BY LAWRENCE G.tRJEEN

Some of the roofs are plum-colour,
Some of the roofs are grey,
Some of the roofs are silverstone,
And some are made of clay;
But under every gabled close
There 's a secret hid away.
Lilian DUFF

Contents

Chapter

1

Secret of life

2

The oldest man on earth

3

Throwing the bones

4

Some prophecies came true

5

The Ridgeback mystery

6

Genevieve in the jungle

7

Penniless wanderers

8

No greater disaster

9

Return to Kimberley

10

Strange landings

11

A secret of the sands

12

Legends of the Victoria falls

13

Sarie Marais

14

Earthquake feeling

15

Rumours never die

16

The peoples and the trees

17

Trails of the tuskers

18

The dodo egg

19

Queer behaviour

20

Secrets of solitude

21

In a tiny city

22

Every man has his price

Some found happiness

List of illustrations.

The oldest man of all I met by chance.

Humans love dogs and mysteries.

The 'Big Hole' is a stupendous example
of human enterprise.

Sam Swailes before the diamond raiding
expedition started.

Sam Swailes and the baby car on the
Kaokoveld coast.

Some historians believe there were white
men staring at the roaring waters of
the Victoria Falls many years
before David Livingstone arrived.

Progress had hardly touched these isolated
characters.

When I sleep under a baobab far from the
cities I think of the creatures that
roamed beneath that grotesque tree
thousands of years ago.

The Wonderboom is an evergreen wild fig
tree.

When the Addo elephants left their own
bush to seek prickly pears in open
country they had to cross the Port
Elizabeth railway line.

Jamestown holds more of the strong meat
of history, I think, than any other
town in Britain's colonial posses-
sions.

Tunny is common enough to become
monotonous

Jamestown is especially aware of its
cliffs.

Islanders go up the ladder with a peculiar
backward swing of the leg.

It is still a charming place.

Among the great laurels and palms stood
a quaint little pavilion.

One memorable Sunday I circumnavi-
gated St. Helena.

Just above Knollcombes is the Baptist
chapel and the graveyard where the
Boer prisoners were buried.

Chapter 1

Secret of life

O mickle is the Powerful grace that
lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true

qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth

doth live

But to the earth some special good
doth give

Shakespeare

ONE HUNDRED and sixteen degrees that
day, ninety-five by night. Clanwilliam in
midsummer a quarter of a century ago. I

sat on the hotel stoep in good company,
ready for any diversion which might ease
the burden of the heat.

Down the main street in the moonlight
came skipping and dancing a tall and
powerful man with long hair and flowing
beard. He wore an army greatcoat and a
sheepskin cap. A coloured boy, carrying
an old-fashioned candle-lamp, followed
the queer stranger. The bearded man,
seeing that he had found an audience,
halted before the stoep, and put down the
skin bag he carried. Now we could see the
benevolent eyes of the man. Odd he might
be, but he would harm no one.

"I am Pieter Boom, and I am six thousand
years old," he announced in English with
an Afrikaans accent. "I have travelled the
whole world, and now I have come to
Clanwilliam to read the Bible to you. Boy
- hold up the lamp."

For a while the crowd on the stoep
listened politely, though it was clear that

they wished to know more about the man
himself. During a pause someone called
out: "Take off that overcoat, man - you'll
suffocate in this weather."

"Heat and cold I do not feel," replied the
preacher. He went on to talk of herbs and
he laid down rules of health. His audience
listened intently, and I only wish that I
had noted more details of his strange
lecture. The late Dr. Peter Nortier was
there, the beloved physician and farmer
who did so much for the district. "Is that
right, doctor?" inquired the crowd as the
preacher uttered his words of warning.
"Perfectly true ... excellent advice,"
confirmed the doctor. At the end of the
address, I remember, the preacher urged
us to eat more lentils, which he regarded
as one of the most nourishing foods on
earth. "Absolutely right," confirmed Dr.
Nortier.

When it was over someone invited the
preacher into the bar. Gently he refused
the invitation. Then someone else offered

to buy him a bag of lentils. This he
accepted. I recall the hotel-keeper opening
up his store and everyone flocking in to
see the lentils weighed and handed over.

Afterwards I joined the crowd in the bar
while the delighted preacher capered off
into the darkness with his little attendant
and his favourite diet. For years I carried a
vision of the man, wondering how he
lived, how much he really knew. But I
never expected to hear of him again.

Now that I have all the time in the world I
am picking up old threads. Sometimes I
discover the truth about unusual
experiences and odd characters who
passed by during busier years and left me
wondering. Memories of strange
encounters and forgotten dramas,
unexplained mysteries and elusive rarities,
have been filling my mind. I must find the
missing episodes if I can, and bring the
past to life, though I am fully aware of
riddles which I shall never solve.

Yet by inspiration or luck I am filling the
gaps in some of the little dramas that
came my way long ago. I still find
pleasure, too, in preserving those
unwritten narratives which are on the
point of being lost through the passing of
old people, the only people who can still
speak as eye-witnesses of unusual events.

I was in Clanwilliam again recently, and I
sought out one who was there on the night
of that memorable lecture. "What
happened to the preacher?" I asked, fully
expecting a shrug of the shoulders.

"Pieter Boom ... he's still here,
somewhere in the mountains," came the
reply. "Must be seventy now if he's a day
... but perfectly healthy and enjoying his
lentils when he can get them." And so,
after twenty-five years, I heard the story
of Pieter Boom, whose real name is Pieter
Burger.

They nicknamed him Boom because his
whiskers grew like a tree. He could

discuss so many subjects that some said
he was a university man; but this he
denied. He had joined the police towards
the end of World War I, and had become
heavy-weight boxing champion of the
Western Province. During one fight in
1920, however, he received such a
hammering that he was invalided out of
the force and awarded a pension of
thirteen pounds a month. He then turned
to religion, and took to the road as a
preacher.

It was coincidence that I should have
watched the arrival of Pieter Burger in the
district where, with the years, he had
become a legendary figure. All those
years, while I was travelling up and down
Africa, half way across the world, Pieter
Boom was living in the Cedarberg
mountains. While I crouched in the caves
of Tobruk thinking about the next bomb
explosion, this old child of nature was
sleeping deeply in the caves where those
earlier lovers of freedom, the Bushmen,

had left their rock paintings. I suppose
there is no corner of South Africa where a
hermit would find greater solitude amid
scenes of grandeur than in this mountain
world of hundreds of square miles. Here
lone Pieter had ground, and roasted the
wild almonds for his coffee, picked and
brewed his own rooibos tea, collected
herbs and wild fruits and caught hares in
distant kloofs seldom trodden by human
feet. He bathed in mountain streams, and
cooked his food with the aroma of the
cedar wood fire in his nostrils. Sometimes
he came down into the settled valley,
fragrant with orange groves. Most of the
years he spent on the remote heights. "I
have not a worry in the world, but I
cannot sleep with a roof over my head,"
he told the village people.

When his military overcoat fell to pieces,
Pieter Burger trapped dassies and made
himself a Robinson Crusoe garment from
the skins. I think he could survive without
his pension, for he makes his own shoes,

lives off the country and pays no rent. He
can still run for miles, leaping wire fences
in his path. He knows the baboons and the
buck, and he has a way with dogs which is
almost uncanny. Never has a dog bitten
him. He says that he is sorry for people
who live in civilisation. I can believe it.

The man who told me about Pieter Burger
reminded me that Clanwilliam had been
the home for some years of one of the
cleverest herbalists in South Africa. It was
in the early nineteen-thirties that Jan
Agenbach arrived in the district as
foreman of a gang working on the
Olifants River irrigation scheme.
Agenbach was full of personality, with
piercing light blue eyes and tawny hair. In
the Cedarberg mountains he found a
wealth of herbs, and he treated the
ailments of his men so effectively that
people from Clanwilliam began
consulting him.

Agenbach married and settled in
Clanwilliam when the dam was finished.

Stories of his cures spread far beyond the
district, and people drove long distances
to see him. Often, before they could
describe their symptoms, Agenbach told
them what they were suffering from. It
may have been nothing more than keen
observation, of course, but his reputation
grew with the years.

Agenbach never revealed his secrets. He
used vaseline as a base for many of his
herbal ointments, and he mixed a number
of herbal medicines which were regarded
by his patients as elixirs. Born with a caul,
he wore it always under his hat.
Superstitious people regard a caul as
lucky, of course, and Agenbach declared
this his success was due to it.

There are as many tales of Agenbach as a
siener or clairvoyant as there are of his
herbal knowledge. Sometimes he told
people what they had been talking about
as they approached his house. He could
locate straying cattle, describing places he
had never seen. Agenbach died of

pneumonia in the winter of 1937, and his
widow died soon afterwards. They left a
daughter, but Agenbach' s wisdom has
gone unrecorded.

Another man of the mountains crosses my
screen of memory. He is bearded like
Pieter Burger. Once the huge mass was
flaming red, but now it is grey. I met him
when I was a schoolboy, and forty years
passed before I was able to look a little
way into his mind.

After four decades everyone in Cape
Town knows this man by sight. He is Joe
Masurek 1 , the Russian herbalist, who likes
you to call him "Professor". I remember
him as I first saw him; the long, vivid
hair, seaman's peaked cap, thick overcoat
and seaboots, a sack, a cudgel and a pipe.

1 Not to be confused with "Russian" Smith,
the old sailor who lived for years under a
wharf at Table Bay Docks and died during
World War II.

His clothes and his blue eyes remain
unchanged, but now he is over eighty and
at times he is bent under the weight of his
years. I find the signs of age doubly
pathetic in such a man, for he is a child of
nature, he belongs to the open air and he
must feel the loss of his powers far more
than those who have never really made
use of all that Nature gave him.

Joe Masurek told me that he was born in
White Russia. As a young man he walked
all over Europe learning the lore of the
herbalist, knowledge that goes back to the
Cave Man. He came to understand the
properties of homely plants, the roots and
leaves of ancient repute which did indeed
heal suffering mankind. Sometimes by
smell, sometimes by sharp eyesight, he
picked such powerful medicinal herbs as
the buttercup called Monkshood, which
many feared because of the aconite poison
it contained. Joe knew how to prepare a
safe ointment from it for neuralgia. He
gathered Belladonna and Foxglove, too,

and the narcotic with yellow flowers
called Henbane. In the woods he found
the sorrel which makes a poultice for
ulcers. The evergreen Broom he used as a
purgative, while he cured many a case of
indigestion with Caraway seeds or
Angelica roots.

Then he went to sea before the mast, and
shortly before World War I his ship called
at a South African port. Joe Masurek
sauntered off on a walk in the veld, and he
was so interested in what he saw that he
let his ship go without him. That was
before the days of passports. Nobody
bothered about a middle-aged Russian
herbalist wandering through the Cape
districts on foot. Joe Masurek was
fascinated by herbs he had never seen
before.

I put it to Joe that it must have taken him
a long time to discover the medicinal
properties of South African herbs, and the
places where valuable herbs could be
found. He shook his great mane of hair.

"Just watch the animals," advised Joe in
his cultured voice. "Use your nose and
watch the animals. Buck, horses and
baboons all point the way to the herbs. In
the great influenza epidemic I saw the
baboons scratching up wild garlic for
themselves, and that is the finest influenza
medicine you could hope to find
anywhere."

So the Russian roamed the Cape
mountains and the veld, using the
principles which herbalists have built up
since the beginning. Often he carried out
experiments on himself, identifying
emetic and purgative shrubs unknown in
Europe, blistering his arm with euphorbia
milk, bathing his eyes with the lantana
herb called "bird's brandy", drinking the
syrup of the sugar-bush which so many
take for chest ailments.

He found that the bitter-tasting, pungent
or aromatic herbs were often the most
effective. By taste and smell, trial and
error, he gained the knowledge that many

a university botanist might envy. He came
to believe in fresh, local herbs for the
treatment of local diseases. If the
koekmakranka was not to be found in a
district, he would treat stomach sufferers
with the thistly, greygreen karmedik plant,
or the little bush called bels which grows
on the heights, or the kapokbossie of the
Karoo. The gum from cedar trees made a
hot poultice for rheumatics, and when this
was not available he applied warmed
leaves of the arum lily. Hotnotskooigoed,
the shrub with silver leaves which
mountaineers and vagrants use as
bedding, was among the remedies he
learned to apply for heart complaints;
kattekruie (catmint) and thyme were
others. He saw the Hottentots gathering
the roots of the purple flowered
pelargonium, boiling them with milk to
cure dysentery. But the Malays picked the
pelargonium with crimson flowers, known
as Roode Rabassam, to help a woman in
labour.

Often enough Joe Masurek encountered
bossiedokters who tried to mislead him
and preserve their secrets. In the end the
shrewd eyes of the Russian penetrated all
deceit. He went on his way, learning the
value of the pointed leaves of "Bushman's
tea" for asthma, the resinous roots of the
platdoring or sieketroos as a diuretic, the
juice of wild fig leaves as a gargle, a
narcotic and as a lotion for burns.

You cannot acquire this herbal
pharmacopoeia without visiting wild and
lonely places. Joe Masurek has never
feared any animal, however, and like
Pieter Burger he has a special power over
ferocious dogs. Leopards have crossed his
path in the mountains, but never have they
attacked him. The only time he had to run
for his life was when he encountered a
pack of baboons which had been trapped
in a mountain fire and had become mad
with fear. But he has kept a sharp look-out
for snakes ever since a yellow cobra bit
him. He says that he needed his herbal

remedies that day, though I believe it was
his own magnificent physique which
saved his life. There was also a poisonous
spider which inflicted a dangerous bite,
but he soon recovered. Once he broke a
leg while climbing. Otherwise he knew no
real illness for eighty years.

It was in 1915 that Joe Masorek reached
Cape Town, and very soon he realised that
Table Mountain would provide him with
all the essential herbs. Besides dealing in
medicinal plants he knows where to find
the most appetising watercress; and after
the first autumn rains he can locate the
field mushrooms which are in such great
demand at restaurants. I do not know
whether mushrooms have a medicinal
value, but they form part of Joe Masurek' s
stock-in-trade as a remedy for certain
bacterial infections.

I found that the "Professor" knew all
about the "doctrine of signatures", though
he laughed at the ancient idea that you
could tell the medicinal value of a herb

from its shape. Sometimes the ancients
were right. There are tubers on the roots
of the pilewort which suggested it as a
remedy for piles; and so a useful ointment
was made when blended with hog's lard.
And the Cape gooseberry is the traditional
cure for stone in the bladder or kidneys;
an infusion of the leaves and a decoction
of the seeds taken many times a day.

You enter a fascinating world of healing
indeed when you consider the medicines
of the veld and the mountains and the
farms,

Boiled strawberry leaves to remove tartar
from the teeth. Orange leaves and flowers
for all convulsive ailments, peach leaves
as a sedative. Sorrel for the liver, wild
thyme to cure melancholy and nervous
diseases. Leaves and flowers of certain
heaths as a tonic. Fern syrups to relieve
hoarseness. Mosses for dressing wounds,
pine tar for skin diseases, acanthus as a
poultice for ulcers. Flowers and leaves of
daisies to relieve pain when other

remedies have failed. A decoction of
nettles as a gargle, olive leaves for
reducing a fever, clover for whooping
cough, and cabbage juice for stomach
ulcers.

As a collector of botanical specimens, the
"Professor" ranks indeed with the
professionals. He kept his private
collection in a room which he hired in the
city; and it is sad to relate that someone
robbed him of this hoarded treasure of the
years.

Few men can have slept more often than
Joe on the heights and in the caves of
Table Mountain. This, I think, explains
the heavy overcoat in midsummer. Joe
carries his bedding on his back. But he is
completely unaware of clothes as he is
oblivious to social distinctions. Joe
Masurek dines with friends in fashionable
suburbs, and he has been observed taking
a hand in a card game with the natives on
duty in an all-night garage. When he is in

town he goes regularly to a favourite
milk-bar for a cheese sandwich.

Joe Masurek was feeling the weight of his
years late in 1955, and he was taken to
hospital after a heart attack in the street.
They tried to cut off his beard and long
hair, but Joe resisted all efforts. He told
his visitors that he knew the herbs he
needed for his ailment, but he was too
weak to climb in search of them. When he
looked through the window at friendly,
distant Table Mountain, tears came into
the old man's eyes. The mountain had
done more than provide him with a living,
and he loved the kloofs and the ledges, the
waterfalls and forests.

So there were two men who gave me little
glimpses into their lives under the sun and
stars, and into the philosophy ruling their
lives. Ambitious people, those who strive
for success, people too deep in the ruts of
city life to gaze up at the sky, will find
nothing admirable in two old vagrants.
Not many of us would survive so close to

Nature in the mountains; not many would
even wish to try. But we are not all cast in
the same mould. Pieter Burger and Joe
Masurek found the way of life suited to
their peculiar needs. There is room in our
civilisation for picturesque vagrants as
well as successful business men. And it is
certain that Pieter Burger and Joe
Masurek have learnt more about life close
to Nature than some of the greatest brains
of the cities.

Have these old vagabonds any secrets
worth knowing? I think some of them
have. Man cannot live in solitude year
after year without storing up wisdom
which is not to be found in books. In the
herbs of the veld there rests the basis, the
origin of modern medical science. Many
herbs are useless, some are dangerous,
others have saved lives. With all their
marvellous drugs, the trained healers are
still working on the fringe of a great field.
The cure for cancer may be growing

unrecognised under a rock on a mountain
top.

In the Cape there are vast stores of herbs
and a rich treasure house of inherited
knowledge. No doubt some of the old
secrets have been lost, surviving only in
legend. I am thinking especially of the
mixture of plant juices, so powerful in the
hands of long departed Hottentot
herbalists that a man's limbs could be cut
off without pain.

Of course the real art of the herbalist lies
in plucking herbs at the right time and
using them in the right form. Orthodox
medicine does not deny the value of
herbs, but doctors claim that their
synthetic laboratory products are cleaner,
cheaper and more effective. I wonder
whether the herbs have been tested fairly?
A dried and wizened specimen cannot
have the virtue of the same herb used soon
after it has been gathered, and at a season
when it is at full strength. Dried digitalis,
for example, is useless. But what is the

right season - before flowering, or when
the flower appears, or at seeding time?
The answer must vary from plant to plant.
It is also essential to use the right part at
the right time; sometimes the whole plant,
often only the flower or the seed. There
are poisonous growths with safe parts,
like the gifhoutbossie; you can grate the
roots and use them to cure stomach-ache.
(I believe this was a favourite medicine of
the old Koranna kaptein Hendrik Beukes,
whose widow revealed the secret.) Some
herbs are more powerful when mixed with
other herbs and substances; linseed oil,
santolienhout, buchu, honey and
wildedagga for inflammation of the lungs.
And the herbalist must acquire his
difficult art without the aid of text books.

Yet I believe that men like Pieter Burger
and Joe Masurek come very close to the
secret of health, the secret of life. Many of
the great discoveries in medicine were
made by primitive herbalists. Raw
savages provided the civilised world with

quinine and digitalis. I hope that when
still greater discoveries are made, the
bearded old vagabond of a herbalist will
not carry his secrets with him to the grave.

Chapter 2
The Oldest Man On Earth

MOST of us, I suppose, have passed some
of our time pondering over the secret of
long life. I have questioned many old
people, a few of them genuine centena-
rians; and as a rule I have found them
alert and intelligent, qualities which may
have some bearing on the problem.

The oldest man of all I met by chance. He
may have been the oldest man in Africa,
possibly on earth. I was travelling to
Northern Rhodesia in 1935 and the train
stopped at one of those desert stations in
Bechuanaland where you see a water tank,
a name-board and a fence adorned with

karosses which passengers sometimes
buy. This station also offered the
spectacle of a white haired, white-bearded
ancient who was obviously blind and
appeared to be happy in spite of his
closed, sightless eyes.

"That is Ramonotwane, the oldest man
you'll ever set eyes on," remarked a
picturesque white man in a bush shirt and
riding breeches. I think he was a trader
who had come to the station to collect his
goods and live for five minutes in the
semblance of a wider world. He had a
humorous face, and he made me wish the
train was staying longer.

"How old?" I asked suspiciously, though I
smiled at his remark.

"Some say a hundred and twenty years
old," replied the white man. "Longer than
I'll last, anyway - the brandy will get me
before that." But he did not look like it. A
little desert-weary, perhaps, or "sand-
happy" as we once called it.

Deserts are healthy places, and
Ramonotwane lasted for another decade
after my glimpse of him. I always
regretted that there was no interpreter
present, and that the train pulled out
before I could get to know the old man.
As it was, I simply carried away an
impression of one who had warmed
himself in the South African sun, and
found pleasure in it, during a lifetime
beyond the average.

He was a large-headed man but not very
tall, and in that I found him true to the
longevity type. Your lean fellow, below
six feet, lively as a grig, is much more
likely to become a centenarian than your
heavy giant. I also remembered that
Ramonotwane had most of his own teeth.
Very old people will tell you that they
owe their lives to teeth which, even when
worn down, are still capable of dealing
with all sorts of food, and that the finest
dental plates are poor substitutes.

The oldest man I ever met by chance. He may
have been the oldest man in Africa, possibly
on earth.

Reports of native centenarians are treated
with great reserve by scientists in South
Africa, though the lay public balances this
attitude by not being critical enough. I did
not attach any importance to the white
mans' estimate of one hundred and twenty
years. To my surprise, however,
Ramonotwane came into the news that
year, and it seemed that he might be the
oldest man in Africa after all.

Certainly he had waited a long time for
this fame. His own people had recognized
him for many years as a venerable and
lovable old man, a wise man with a sense
of humour. Missionaries and officials, too,
were fully aware of Ramonotwane, and
had come to regard him as an authority on
phases of Bechuanaland history. But to
the outside world, this story of the man
who had lived for one hundred and twenty
years was a strange tale indeed, and one
which aroused wide interest.

How do you fix the age of a native
without a birth-certificate? You must be

an historian, full of tribal lore and the
dates of those events which are likely to
be remembered by natives. Wars and
battles, the births and deaths of great
chiefs, the founding of towns, comets and
plagues, sensational floods and falls of
snow, drought and blizzards and
earthquakes; all these remain in the mind
of a native as the landmarks of a century.
When the census enumerators carried out
their task in 1951 they were equipped
with a list of South African dates starting
with the death of Chaka (1828) and
including such incidents as the
establishment of Lovedale (1842), the
cattle killing delusion (1857), Adam
Kok's trek (1862), the first appearance of
the mealie-grub (1865) and the blowing
up of the Kokstad powder magazine
(1878).

If a man said he was born in the year of
the great famine last century, the list fixed
him as an 1885 baby. Many old natives
remembered Queen Victoria's Jubilee

(1887), Sir Henry Loch's visit to the
native territories (1891) and the locusts
that came the following year. Among the
events of this century fixed in the minds
of many thousands of natives were the
crop disease Of 1904, Halley's comet
(1909), the first census of all races in the
Union (1911), the sinking of the troopship
Mendi in 1917 with heavy casualties
among the members of the native labour
corps on board.

The man who brought Ramonotwane to
light was an investigator of considerable
skill - Mr. F. R. Paver, 2 editor of the
Johannesburg "Star". In 1933 Mr. Paver
found Ramonotwane living in the village
of Kalamare, among the Shoshong hills
twenty miles to the east of the railway

2 Mr. Paver is an authority on Voortrekker,
Zulu and Bechuana history. He is the last man
in the world to be impressed by a charlatan. I
have had the benefit of his expert help in
writing this chapter.

line. With Mr. Paver was Lt.-Col. Jules
Ellenberger, C.M.G., former Resident
Commissioner of the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, a fluent native linguist with
thirty-seven year's experience of the
country.

Ramonotwane stated that he had known
Sechele, a Bakwena chief mentioned by
Livingstone. "I was born a few years after
Sechele," declared Ramonotwane. This
gave the first clue to Ramonotwane 's age.
Sechele was a Bechuanaland celebrity
who lived in a well-built house with
mirrors, clocks, a silver tea-pot and other
amenities. The hunter Selous described
him as the most completely civilised
native he had ever met. Sechele was born
in 1811.

Ramonotwane also said that he was a
small boy herding goats when Makaba
was killed. Now the missionary Moffat
visited Makaba, chief of the Bangwaketse,
in 1825; but when Andrew Geddes Bain,

explorer and trader, entered the territory
in 1826 he was shown the place where
Makaba had been killed by fugitive
Matatis.

Bechuana lads joined their maphato
(regiment) between the ages of fourteen
and seventeen. Ramonotwane gave an
account of his exploits as a fighting man
up to the time of his capture when the
Matabele warriors under Msilikazi
invaded Bechuanaland. That was in or
about 1832.

Perhaps you will remember that Msilikazi
(spelt Moselekatse when I was at school)
was the Zulu induna who failed to send
back all the loot to his king Chaka after a
battle. Chaka hurled a large army against
him, but Msilikazi escaped into the
territory now known as the Transvaal.
There he and his followers became known
as the Matabele; ten thousand cruel
invaders who killed for the love of killing.
They spared the young girls, and
sometimes a likely young man such as

Ramonotwane was allowed to join them.
Ramonotwane often chanted an isibongo
in praise of his old leader Msilikazi, using
the Zulu dialect of the Matabele. He told
of the journey northwards into the land
which is now Rhodesia, and the conquest
of the Mashona tribes. Msilikazi trusted
Ramonotwane, appointing him as one of
the guardians of the chief's harem.

Once in his life Ramonotwane took part in
an attack on some white men. "I was
charging with my shield raised, when
suddenly I found my left hand powerless,"
Ramonotwane narrated, "I looked, and
waul thumb and finger gone."

Mr. Paver had no difficulty in fixing the
date of this episode, for it occurred in the
Matopo Hills at a period when the only
white men in the country were a party of
Voortrekkers under Hendrik Potgieter.
These men crossed the Limpopo in 1847,
returning to the Transvaal soon after
beating off Msilikazi 's warriors. Msilikazi

died in 1869, 1 but towards the end of his
career he rewarded Ramonotwane for his
services by sending him back to his own
people.

With this and other evidence Mr. Paver
checked Ramonotwane' s story at every
point and found that it rang true.
Ramonotwane must have been born in or
about 1815, the year of Waterloo.

Naturally, there were sceptics. The story
of Ramonotwane reached London in 1938
and "The Times" published a portrait, of
Ramonotwane and opened its columns to
a most interesting controversy. The late
Sir John Harris, pillar of the Anti-Slavery
and Aborigines Protection Society, had
been visiting Bechuanaland earlier that
year, and had spent some time looking
into Ramonotwane' s age. He said that
chiefs and missionaries, officials and

3 In 1943 the youngest son of Msilikazi died at
Empandeni Mission, Southern Rhodesia, at
the reputed age of 1 10 years.

friends of the old man had informed him
that Ramonotwane had been born in the
same year as Sekgoma, father of Khama.
Harris thought that Ramonotwane might
be one hundred and forty years of age,
and suggested that some qualified
scientist in South Africa should visit
Bechuanaland to establish the facts.

Colonel H. Marshall Hole, author of "The
Making of Rhodesia", then chipped in
with clear proof that some of the dates
given by Sir John Harris were inaccurate.
Even so, Ramonotwane would still have
been a very old man.

Dr. Maurice Ernest, biologist and founder
of the Centenarian Club in London - the
aim of which is to investigate the means
by which health and vigour may be
retained beyond the century - dashed into
the fray at an early stage. He had
investigated many claims, and the longest
life he had ever been able to confirm was
One hundred and thirteen years. That was
Pierre Joubert, a French-Canadian who

died early last century. Ernest offered to
reimburse Sir John Hams up to a limit of
£250 if Ramonotwane stood up to a
scientific examination in London.

4 Inevitably the claims made on behalf of
Ramonotwane reminded various people of
other almost incredibly ancient characters. Mr.
R. W. Hamilton of Hadlow Down vouched for
one Bilai bin Suliman bin Ahmed of Zanzibar,
and I cannot resist a quotation from this letter.
"He was chief gunner in the navy of the Sultan
of Muscat, and arrived in Zanzibar with
Seyyid Said bin Sultan in 1832," Mr.
Hamilton wrote. "He was then retired from the
sea and appointed to take charge of the Palace
flag, a post which he held for eighty years in
the enjoyment of all his bodily faculties. His
papers were destroyed in the bombardment of
the palace in 1836, but he can hardly have
retired as chief gunner under thirty-five, which
would make him one hundred and fifteen at
the time of his death. And he may have been
ten years older than that."

A stupid challenge, for there are no
physical tests which will fix a man's age.
Moreover, as Sir John Harris replied, it
would not do the old man any good to
take him out of his healthy desert sur-
roundings and transport him to London.

No decision was reached in London - it
was impossible. However, there was a
distinguished visitor in Ramonotwane' s
kraal in August 1938, and his opinions are
interesting. He was the late Dr. Robert
Broom, D.Sc, F.R.S., the anthropologist,
who nearly became a centenarian himself.
Dr. Broom enlisted the influence of
Tshekedi Khama, regent of the
Bamangwato, who lent him his own
scribe as interpreter.

The visitors found Ramonotwane resting
in the sun, a favourite occupation. He
wore a woollen cap, khaki shirt and
trousers, an old air force greatcoat and
sandals. Dr. Broom described Ramono-
twane as well-nourished, vigorous, and
not unduly wrinkled. His heart and pulse

were satisfactory. The blindness was due
to cataract. His forehead was scarred as a
result of a knobkerrie injury. In his report
he emphasized that it was impossible to
fix a centenarian's age from physical
examination. Dr. Broom, however,
accepted the historical evidence that he
was born some months before Khama's
father Sekgoma, who was born in or about
1797. That brought Ramonotwane up to
an age of one hundred and forty; and as he
died seven years later, Dr. Broom's
estimate gave him nearly a century and a
half of life.

I cannot accept that, even though it came
from such a renowned anatomist as Dr.
Broom, authority on primitive man.
Obviously there was a mistake in the date
of Sekgoma' s birth; it is also probable that
Ramonotwane was mistaken in thinking
that he had been born in the same year.

Mr. Paver had formed the opinion that
Ramonotwane must have been born
between the years 1815 and 1817, the

earlier date being more probable. He
cross-examined one of Ramonotwane' s
sons, a man of seventy, who stated that his
earliest memory of his father was of a
grey-haired man.

Someone asked Ramonotwane how many
children he had, and the old man replied:
"If we sat here till the sun went down we
would still not have counted them all."

Ramonotwane remembered the mission-
ary Robert Moffat, who first arrived in
Bechuanaland in 1820; and David
Livingstone, who travelled in the territory
in the middle of last century.

It was a memorable interview, and it
ended with Dr. Broom presenting
Ramonotwane with a new warm blanket.
"Half the secret of his age is in his teeth,"
Dr. Broom summed up. "The other half is
the spirit which animates him; it shines
out in enthusiasm, humour or pathos."

I believe there is medical support for the
Mechnikov theory that people who drink

sour milk regularly (for example, Russian
peasants) tend to avoid intestinal
poisoning and thus reach extreme old age.
Ramonotwane took sour milk in his
simple diet, consisting mainly of porridge
and a little meat. He insisted on having a
hot bath every day, and regarded this
luxury, on the edge of the Kalahari, as
important. At one time Ramonotwane had
smoked dagga, but his chief stopped him.
Evidently it had done him no harm.

If it could be shown that the human body
is utterly incapable of lasting as many
years as Ramonotwane is supposed to
have lived, then the strongest evidence
would have to be set aside, even though it
seemed flawless. Can a human being live
for one hundred and thirty years?
Admittedly, no such life span has ever
been proved. The nearest approach to it
was that of Robert Bowman of
Cumberland, who died in 1 823 in his one
hundred and nineteenth year. Some
authorities accept Bowman, others are

dubious. There is a gap between one
hundred and thirteen and one hundred and
thirty; but is seventeen years far beyond
the bounds of possibility? I would not
care to fix the age of Ramonotwane too
closely, but I am prepared to believe that
he was, in his day, the oldest man in
Africa.

In the Kimberley Museum you will find a
portrait of a Bushman named Daniel, who
died in 1933 at the reputed age of one
hundred and eighteen years. The museum
authorities investigated his story during
his lifetime and decided that he was
probably born in the second decade of last
century, possibly in 1815. I wish Daniel
and Ramonotwane could have been
brought together.

Daniel could drink a pint bottle of wine
without a pause. For many years he slaked
his thirst by means of a pension of a
shilling paid to him every Wednesday and
Saturday by Mr. L. T. Shone, a Kimberley
resident. Daniel had signed away his skull

in return for these bi-weekly payments,
but I never heard whether this grim
souvenir of the centenarian was claimed.

Another very old native who died in 1933
was James Molife, who claimed to be a
survivor of an impi that was shattered by
Andries Pretorius in 1838 at the Blood
River battle. His age was estimated at one
hundred and fifteen years. He settled at
Ladysmith and became a true patriarch,
with a horde of greatgrandchildren round
him. Whether he was a true centenarian is
another matter.

I am less dubious about the Zulu woman
Ukati ("the Cat"), who was still alive in
1933, and said to be one hundred and
fifteen, like Molife. According to her
story, her mother had fled from Chaka's
blood-lust at a time when all female
babies were being killed. Ukati married
one of Dingaan's warriors. Her husband
was present at the massacre of Piet Retief
and his men in 1838 and told her about it.

Now it is possible for a woman with
ordinary knowledge of Zulu history to
invent a narrative like that and repeat it
until she believes it herself. Ukati,
however, described one incident so
vividly that every investigator accepted it
as fact. She was lying in her hut just
before her first child was born when, as
she put it, "suddenly the sun covered its
face". That was the total eclipse of March
1839, and before the shadow of the moon
had passed, her child was born.

Why should a primitive Zulu woman
invent such a story? False or true, she
created an episode worthy of a novelist.
The final point in favour of Ukati 's
truthfulness was found in her descendants.
Ukati' s daughter was living with her, and
the daughter had four sons, three
grandsons and one great-grandson. I shall
never know whether Ukati told the truth
about her age, but if she did lie, she lied
magnificently.

One of the oldest men of his day, known
to thousands of South Africans, was
Abraham, the Bushman. I had many
conversations with this wise and friendly
old fellow, both in the Kalahari in 1936
and during Abraham's famous visit to
Johannesburg. It was impossible to doubt
that Abraham had passed the century
mark, and the estimate of one hundred and
nine years when he died must have been
fairly accurate.

The late Mr. Donald Bain, desert guide
and hunter who took Abraham to
Johannesburg, made every effort to check
this estimate. Among other things he
discovered that Abraham was present at
the death of Robert Lewis, the Kalahari
trader, who died in 1894 after being
mauled by a leopard. "Ah, I was an old
man then - I was bald," declared
Abraham.

Almost to the day of his death Abraham
took part in the strenuous Bushman
dances. They buried him under a tree I

know well, far out in the Kalahari where
the dusty Nossob river-bed joins the dry
Auob. There Abraham rests, a genuine
centenarian who loved the desert.

For a number of years the most celebrated
white centenarian in South Africa was Mr.
Pieter Chandler Pringle of Germiston.
You could not call him an impostor, but
when he claimed to be one hundred and
twenty one (not long before his death in
1951) I felt there was a mistake
somewhere. After his death his marriage
certificate came to light, bearing the date
April 11, 1893 and showing that he had
given his age then as forty-seven. So he
was a mere one hundred and five when he
died.

I have often marvelled at the peace of
mind of the centenarian; probably the key
to the mystery of longevity. However,
they usually have strong views on diet.
"Eat plenty of honey and mealies, enjoy
the fresh air and avoid quarrels and
troubles," advised Mr. Pringle.

Occasionally you find a centenarian with
highly original ideas. As a group, how-
ever, they have much in common. They
are people with keen appetites, often poor;
hard workers who keep going as long as
they can; kindly conscientious, cheerful
people. Many of them were frail in early
life and had to learn to look after
themselves. Many admit that they have
had serious illnesses. If you analyse their
diets you will find a preference for coarse
wholemeal bread. They take water and
milk rather than tea and coffee. The men
are seldom lifelong teetotallers, and many
of them are (or have been) smokers.

Among the more austere centenarians was
Oupa Zietsman of Barkly East, one
hundred and seven years old in 1924
when he gave his views. "Never enter a
ballroom, never talk scandal, never go
into a bar," warned Oupa Zietsman.

I have been dealing with so many male
centenarians that you may have gathered a
false impression. Women stand a much

better chance than men of reaching the
century, and this has been proved in one
Union census after another. In 1931, for
example, the nine white centenarians
included only one man.

Another fact which emerges from the
statistics is that the best place to reach the
century is a town or village in the Cape
countryside. In one year, all the white
centenarians belonged to the Cape
Province. Malmesbury proved its claim as
a town of very old people when a birthday
party was organized by the mayor in 1936
at the town hall in honour of Mr.
Kasparus ("Oom Kalie") Steyn, aged one
hundred. The guests were thirty men and
women, all over eighty years of age.

A coloured centenarian of Malmesbury
who turned one hundred in 1949 was Dirk
Jasson. He fixed the date of his birth by
the anti-convict agitation. Dirk worked as
a mason until he was almost ninety. He
differed from "Oom Kalie" in one respect,
for he was a moderate smoker.

A country magistrate once told me the
most amusing centenarian story I have
heard. Relations of a man of ninety-eight
applied for him to be placed on the "Black
List", and said that he was spending all
his money on drink and endangering his
health.

"I have only £30, which I am spending on
port wine, brandy and beer," declared the
ancient one in a deep, strong voice. "My
teeth have gone and the liquor keeps me
alive. As to my health, I have outlived all
my friends."

The order was refused, and the old man
went away chuckling and vowing that he
would not leave his descendants a penny.
He lived to be a hundred - and kept his
promise.

Those who dislike the austere type of
centenarian may take heart when they
think of Mr. R. H. Thomas of Ronde-
bosch, one hundred and one when he died
in 1947. He ate heartily, smoked fairly

heavily all his life, and thoroughly
enjoyed a drink. Mr. Thomas went to bed
so late that his relatives tried to trick him
by making all the clocks in the house an
hour fast. He was not deceived, and
retired towards midnight; but he made up
for this indulgence by sleeping late and
getting up after lunch.

Only when nearing the century did Mr.
Thomas find his hair becoming a little
thin on top. Throughout his life he had
washed his hair every day with soap and
cold water. He never wore glasses. Mr.
Thomas was a great walker, however, and
until he was well into his eighties he often
strolled into Cape Town from Newlands.

In the nineteen-twenties there were still a
few people with fragmentary memories of
the abolition of slavery and the Great
Trek. I met some who had watched the
convict ship Neptune enter Table Bay in
1849, and the Alabama coming in
fourteen years later.

"Men do not usually die; they kill them-
selves," remarked Montaigne. No one
looks forward to old age, though most of
us hope to live long. The centenarians set
us an example and show that it can be
done.

Chapter 3
Throwing The Bones

GOOI KOOKWATER waar daar goelery is.
Yes, the Afrikaans proverb has a great
deal of wisdom in it. "Throw boiling
water where there is witchcraft." Most of
those who "throw the bones" and indulge
in other forms of black magic are
impostors. Boiling water turns many a
ghost into a scalded human. Nevertheless
a growing number of scientists now admit
that the human mind is capable of
achievements which cannot be explained

by any known laws. Telepathy has been
proved by Professor Rhine; though I must
say that I thought the Piddingtons were no
more than clever tricksters. There is also
much evidence in favour of clairvoyance,
the ability to see beyond the range of
normal sight. These powers are not
confined to white people working under
Rhine's laboratory conditions. South
Africa must have known the dolosgooier,
the man who throws the bones, for
thousands of years before the first white
man arrived. This dark art came from the
caves of Europe with the Bushman and
was passed on to the Hottentots.

I saw the well-known alternative process
once, performed by an old, pure Hottentot
very far from civilisation. He used the
entrails of a sheep instead of the bones,
and predicted a happy and successful
journey, very like the less imaginative
fortune-tellers of the cities. It proved
nothing, and I often wish that I had
devised an exacting test for the old man

and made him earn his tobacco. However,
I have heard many tales of the skill of
dolosgooiers, and some appear to be
authentic.

As a rule the bones come from the
backbone of some small animal, but horns
and hooves are used. Some wizards read
the future with four bones, others require
ten times that number. Fragments of ivory
and the stones of wild fruits serve the
same purpose. You smooth the sand, blow
on the bones and cast them before you
like dice, so that they form a pattern. The
bones are used mainly to find lost cattle,
though sickness and the causes of death
are often diagnosed with the aid of the
bones. In wild country the dolosgooier
predicts the fortunes of the hunt. Bushmen
rely on the bones almost every day of
their lives, and a Bushman will sometimes
rise uneasily during the night and consult
the bones to find out whether there are
lions about.

The Rev. S. S. Dornan, who knew all the
Kalahari people intimately, made a study
of the bones. He said that only once in his
life in the desert had he encountered a
woman who could use the divining bones.
It is almost entirely a male art.

Soon after World War I, two constables of
the old South West Africa Police were
following stock-thieves in the Gobabis
district when they came to a Bushman
werf. The little Bushmen were friendly,
and Constable Anthony Pebroe gave them
tobacco. Next day an old Bushman
offered to "throw the bones" and visualise
the end of their chase. Pebroe was
sceptical, but he agreed.

"I see you coming to a great bush just as
the sun is rising," declared the Bushman,
studying the bones. "There are many
Bushmen at that place. Be very careful - I
can see an arrow sticking in the belly of
your horse."

Pondering over this cheering information
Pebroe and his fellow policeman rode off
with their coloured guides. At sunrise next
day they did come to a thick patch of
bush, and then Pebroe noticed some
Bushmen running for cover. He galloped
after them amid a shower of poisoned
arrows. One arrow glanced off Pebroe' s
helmet. Soon afterwards his horse
collapsed and died. Pebroe found the
arrow.

Pebroe had other experiences with the
dolosgooiers, for he became interested in
the business and never missed a consul-
tation if he could help it. One prediction,
startling in its accuracy, was made shortly
after he became engaged. He and his
fiancee met an old Hottentot shepherd,
and Pebroe asked him to throw the bones
for them. "The bones have fallen in
different ways," said the shepherd. "You
will never marry." And so it turned out.

Mr. L. R. Breytenbach, a public prose-
cutor in three provinces of the Union,

often met the dolosgooiers, and confessed
that they left him completely baffled. He
thought the Shangaans of the Transvaal
were the most skilful operators. When
anyone approached one of them he would
name his fee, tell his patron which pocket
he kept the money in, and often he would
describe the purpose of the visit.

In 1919, when Mr. Breytenbach was
stationed in the Bethal district, he went to
a dolosgooier with a farmer who had lost
four oxen during the ploughing season.
Old Jannewaine the dolosgooier described
the four missing oxen and advised a
search "on the side where the sun comes
up, along the path by the two mountains".
Sure enough, that was where the oxen had
strayed.

Mr. Breytenbach' s most dramatic exper-
ience came about in the Northern
Transvaal, as a result of a girl's request to
a practitioner named Jilongo to throw the
bones. She was a temporary typist, as the
court typist was on leave in Durban. They

locked the door so that the magistrate
would not catch them practising black
magic, and then Jilongo delivered his
judgment.

"The nonnie does not sit in her own chair,
but in place of someone else," Jilongo
began. "The owner of the chair is by the
great waters. I think she is ill, she is so
white. This is not nice. Ek het klaar
gepraat. "

When a dolosgooier says he has finished
he usually allows no questions and
Jilongo could not be persuaded to
continue. Soon afterwards, however, a
telegram arrived from the Department of
justice offering the temporary typist a
permanent job. The girl on leave in
Durban had resigned owing to the death
of her mother. Coincidence? It may have
been nothing more. But here is another
story which many ex-soldiers who were in
Tobnik must remember. A Zulu soldier
threw the bones on June 20, 1942, shortly
before the German attack, and predicted

the fall. Every detail was checked and
recorded by the Rev. James Chutter,
senior chaplain with the Second South
African Division. (I flew to the Middle
East in the same aircraft as Chutter, but
escaped his fate as a prisoner-of-war.) The
Zulu, announced: "Mkize will come and
take us all away." Native troops used the
word Mkize (possibly derived from
Mkaiser of World War I) for the Germans.
At the time of the prophecy Tobruk was
regarded as impregnable, but before dawn
the desert fortress had fallen.

Students of Zulu history will recall the
famous incident when the monster Chaka
murdered his own mother quietly in the
night. Then he called his dolosgooiers
together and asked them to find the
murderer. The wizards gave several
names, but finally one crafty old fellow
whispered respectfully: "Nkosinkulu, you
killed her yourself." Chaka executed the
false prophets and installed the old man as
his soothsayer.

The late Colonel H. F. Trew of the South
African Police, one of the most valuable
informants I ever had, told me that he had
made a special study of the methods of the
dolosgooier. He thought that many of
their feats could be explained by a clever
intelligence system, for these men had
spies everywhere. Yet there were still
episodes which Colonel Trew was unable
to explain.

Early this century Trew met a dolosgooier
at Gaberones in Bechuanaland, and heard
such a sensational story about this native
that he investigated it in detail. It was said
that the dolosgooier had thrown the bones
for a Major Bird at the time when Colonel
Plumer's force was advancing in an
attempt to relieve Mafeking. The major
had great difficulty in persuading the
dolosgooier to relate what the bones
indicated, but under pressure the native
said that he saw Major Bird lying dead,
face downwards, with nine bullets in him.

He also described the surroundings; a
sandy patch encircled by bush.

Captain "Puggy" Manning of the South
African Constabulary, later commandant
of the police training depot, confirmed the
whole story. Major Bird was found after
the fight at Ramathalabama exactly as the
dolosgooier said; face down in the sand,
with had nine bullets in his body.

In the realm of telepathy many thousands
of primitive natives display inexplicable
powers. They have never heard of extra-
sensory perception, but strange tales are
told - some which can never be proved
now, others which stand up to every test.

A friend of mine was brought up on a
farm in Southern Rhodesia. His family
abandoned the place in 1927, but it
remained unsold. Twenty-two years later
his brother went back unannounced and
camped beside the ruined homestead to
revive boyhood memories. He had only
just settled down when three elderly

natives arrived and saluted. They were the
former cook, houseboy and head
cattleman. "How is the young master? "
they inquired, beaming with pleasure.

The young master spent some time trying
to find out how they had discovered his
presence. They had come from a native
reserve some way away, and no one could
possibly have informed them that a
member of the family was returning to the
derelict farm.

They could not explain it. "We knew,"
they replied to every question. "We
knew."

One of the early tales of telepathy in
South Africa followed the British reverse
at Isandhlwana during the Zulu war of
1879. Frank Brownlee, magistrate and
author, declared that details of the battle
were given by an old native woman to
Europeans in King Williamstown, then a
garrison town, on the very day of the
disaster. The distance was seven hundred

miles, and there was no telegraph. "I
knew," said the old woman.

My friend Colonel Trew set down chapter
and verse of an incident during the 1906
Zulu rebellion. Trew was talking to a son
of Sir Theophilus Shepstone on the steps
of the Pretoria Club when an old Zulu
passed. "Is there any news from Zululand
today?" asked Shepstone.

The Zulu replied that there had been a
fight at Mome Gorge, the previous
evening and that Bambata had been killed
and his impi "stamped flat". Trew went at
once to a government official who was in
touch with the rebellion, but the official
knew nothing. Two hours later, however,
a telegram from the Governor of Natal
confirmed the old Zulu' s story.

The death of Gordon at Khartoum, it is
said, was bazaar talk in Mombasa and
other places more than two thousand
miles to the south the following day.
During every African campaign news has

flashed up and down the continent in this
mysterious way. The rising of Lobengula
in 1 893 was known almost immediately to
natives over wide areas of South Africa.

The late Mr. Owen Letcher, the South
African author and traveller often related
an experience of his own when travelling
in the wilds of North-Eastern Rhodesia in
1911. He was among the Wanda tribe, and
one night he heard the women lamenting.
They told him that their menfolk, serving
in the King's African Rifles in a Somali-
land campaign, had just been wiped out in
battle. Six weeks later Mr. Letcher
confirmed the story.

Probably the most famous example of
native telepathy occurred during the South
African War, when a large number of
Boer prisoners were in camp on the island
of St. Helena, seventeen hundred miles
from Cape Town. Mr. A. J. Williams, then
serving in the Royal Army Medical
Corps, recorded the incident, and there are

many people still living who could
support his statement.

Before dawn one morning Mr. Williams
heard the Boer prisoners in Deadwood
Camp singing hymns, according to
custom. Then the singing stopped, and he
found the prisoners in excited groups. The
flag over the camp was at half-mast. Mr.
Williams asked them what had happened.
They informed him that their native
servants (who had accompanied their
masters into exile from South Africa) had
told them that President Kruger's wife had
died.

The camp commandant telephoned the
cable station near Jamestown, but no such
news had been received. Later that
morning, however, a cable arrived
confirming the news of the death of Mrs.
Kruger.

Chapter 4

Some Prophecies Came True

ONCE I was told to write the death notice
of a prophet. Newspapers of thirty years
ago gave space generously to the passing
of a picturesque character, whereas today
you have to be important to secure more
than a few lines. Nicolaas Pieter Johannes
van Rensburg was a takhaar, a simple
Transvaal farmer who had visions; and he
influenced the course of history in South
Africa.

It is said that the Afrikaner race possesses,
to a greater degree than most other
peoples, the gift of prophecy - if indeed

there is such a gift. President Kruger
spoke of visions, and he had a mysterious
knack of guiding a hunting party towards
unseen game. Of course it may have been
nothing more than experience above the
average acquired through the normal
sense channels. (There are people like my
friend Scott-Haigh who will forecast the
result of a general election in the Union
with such accuracy, and in such detail,
that it looks like clairvoyance; in fact, it is
no more than a deep knowledge of
politics.) Some prophets are so vague that
their utterances may be made to fit almost
any later event. Yet in the careers of a few
prophets one discovers a point where
ordinary intelligent anticipation seems to
end and true, vivid prophecy comes into
the picture. I must say that the life of Van
Rensburg, the famous "Siener" van
Rensburg, leaves me with that impression.

It was in March 1926 that Nicolaas van
Rensburg died. Parliament was in session,
and I went to Mr. Harm Oost, M.L.A., the

friendly oudstryder representing Pretoria
District, knowing that he had been in gaol
with Van Rensburg after the 1914
Rebellion. "Was he really a prophet?" I
asked.

"No one who knew him well could help
believing in him," Harm Oost replied.
"We called him Oom Klasie. He was a
most lovable personality, a kind-hearted
humanitarian, very religious, a great Bible
student, and extremely modest and
sincere."

Harm Oost described the prophet as he
had seen him at a recent meeting: a man
of sixty with faraway grey eyes, a dense
beard streaked with grey, lean and with a
musical voice.

"Very often Oom Klasie saw all sorts of
symbols and images in the sky," Harm
Oost recalled. "He saw bulls of different
colours fighting, herds of springbok, all
sorts of animals. Everything depended on
the interpretation, of course, and on many

occasions Oom Klasie could give no help
in that direction. He declared that he did
not always know the meaning of what he
saw. However, there were times when his
visions were so definite that he could feel
and hear some future experience.

"One day in the Fort at Johannesburg,
where we were imprisoned, Oom Klasie
told us then he had seen himself going
home by train. It was so realistic that he
had felt the movement and heard the
whistle; and at the end of the journey he
had seen himself talking to his wife at
Wolmaransstad."

Harm Oost discussed this vision with the
prophet, who supplied an interesting
detail. Certain prisoners were passing out
of the gate when one man was called back
for something he had forgotten. Warders
at the Fort knew nothing of an order for
the release of prisoners. Some of the men
approached the commandant; but he, too,
was in the dark. Late that night, however,
instructions arrived giving a number of

rebels their freedom; and among them was
the prophet Van Rensburg. As the men
went out, a warder called: "Oom Jan,
Oom Jan, jy vergeet jou stoel. " And one
man returned to pick up the riempie stool
he had made in prison.

Such was Harm Oost's evidence in favour
of Van Rensburg, and it made me eager to
hear more of this strange character. I met
other men who had known him; and in
unexpected places I gathered significant
episodes in his career.

Nicolaas van Rensburg appears to have
been a quiet, almost timid child. He was
born in 1862 and he spent his early years
on the farm Rietkuil near Ottosdal in the
Western Transvaal. When he was eleven
or twelve the farmers suspected that the
natives were planning a rising, but young
Van Rensburg had an early vision and
told his parents they would be perfectly
safe on the farm. He was right. That was
the first important prophecy he made. For
some time before that he had been seeing

visions, but he had not mentioned them to
anyone. Finally he felt impelled to speak.

Sixteen was military age in the republic,
and at sixteen Nicolaas van Rensburg
went out on commando against a rebell-
ious native chief. He had his baptism of
fire, suffering nothing worse than an
attack of malaria on the way home. It was
during the South African War that he
made his reputation as a prophet. Harm
Oost declared that Siener van Rensburg
knew from the start that there would be
years of war and that the forces of the
Republics would be defeated.
Nevertheless, the prophet went right
through the war, and the time soon came
when his accurate forecasts made him a
person of influence.

Van Rensburg served under a number of
Boer generals - Du Toit, De la Rey,
Hertzog, Kemp and the great Christian de
Wet. He moved from one commando to
another at will, seeking anxious leaders
and advising them. And if Nicolaas van

Rensburg said there were no British
troops in the neighbourhood, the burghers
went to sleep without posting a sentry. It
was an easy-going system, but it worked.

Often the prophet gave warning of the
approach of the enemy. He would have a
vision of hats and shoes lying about in
disorder, and that meant a hasty departure.
In another vision he watched a huge troop
of yellow baboons with short tails
climbing a nek in the Magaliesberg range.
They were the British, he said, and thanks
to this information Commandant Jordaan
was able to capture a whole British
convoy with valuable stores.

Van Rensburg' s prophecies appear in
many records and reminiscences of the
South African War. He figured in General
Hertzog's war diary. Professor C. M. van
den Heever declared that Van Rensburg
saved President Steyn from capture by
urging him to hide in the Bushveld.
General De la Rey trusted the prophet
implicitly, and his capture of Field

Marshal Lord Methuen at Tweebos
appears to have been due very largely to
Van Rensburg' s advice.

Among the close friends of the prophet on
commando was a burgher named H. W. R.
Kluever, who noted many of Van
Rensburg' s sayings carefully and saw the
predictions come true. Kluever was
present in 1901 when the prophet
informed General De la Rey that a
messenger would arrive next day from a
westerly direction. Next day a man rode in
from German South West Africa, bearing
an important letter from Dr. Leyds, who
was then in Europe.

General De la Rey sent Kluever to the
Transvaal with official dispatches. "I can
see my friend Kluever returning - he is
riding a white horse," announced the
prophet one day. Kluever arrived in camp
at the expected time, but the horse was
grey. Van Rensburg looked disappointed;
then a thought occurred to him. "When
you crossed the Vaal River, what sort of

horse were you riding?" inquired the
prophet.

"A white horse," Kluever replied.

A queer prediction which some may
regard as a failure was made by Van
Rensburg when his commandant,
Potgieter, asked whether he would survive
the South African War.

"Set your mind at rest - 1 have seen you in
the last battle," Van Rensburg replied.

Potgieter took part in the last battle, but he
was killed. Towards the end of the war
Van Rensburg foretold the Treaty of
Vereeniging, and he was credited with
giving a wealth of detail which placed his
description beyond guesswork. Then he
returned to his farm Rietkuil in the
Wolmaransstad district with his reputation
as a prophet firmly established.

As early as 1911 Van Rensburg had his
first visions of World War I, a world on
fire and again the great bulls, six or seven

red and grey bulls, in mortal combat in the
sky.

Then came the 1913 strike on the Rand.
Among the burghers who were called up
was the prophet's brother. "Don't worry,
you'll be home in about a fortnight,"
remarked the prophet. In a fortnight the
trouble was over.

Far more serious developments lay over
the horizon, and many friends noted
Siener van Rensburg' s prophecies. This
was the period when many people were
influenced by his reputation, and the
shape of things to come as the Siener
envisaged them. Whether the Siener
himself intended to wield such influence
is another matter. He was a mild, peace-
loving man. His friends remember that he
never spoke ill of Botha and Smuts,
though he was in the opposite political
camp. Those who were close to Van
Rensburg declared that he disliked talking
politics, and it was almost impossible to
draw him out. It must also be borne in

mind that this humble prophet was often
unable to interpret his own symbolic
visions. "If he duped others, he duped
himself," wrote a man who was no friend
of Siener van Rensburg.

Van Rensburg never pretended to be able
to call up visions at will. He told his
friends that he was most likely to see into
the future if he lay on his left side with
one hand under his head.

He lost control of his lachrymal glands in
middle-age, and was always wiping the
tears away. This gave some people a false
impression of him.

Several years before the outbreak of
World War I the prophet beheld a huge
number 15 against a dark cloud from
which blood issued. Then he saw General
De la Rey returning home without his hat,
followed by a carriage covered with
flowers.

This was Van Rensburg' s most famous
prophecy, and by far the most dramatic of

his career. There was no doubt about it,
and many who are still living heard it. But
at the risk of being wise after the event, I
must say that Van Rensburg' s words
should have sounded ominous. In the
Western Transvaal, however, the vision
was interpreted as some high honour
which was to be bestowed on General De
la Rey. The prophet himself inclined
towards that belief, though he took up the
familiar attitude that he did not know
exactly what it meant. General De la Rey,
who had such great faith in the prophet,
must have spent many, many hours
pondering over the meaning of those
words.

A restless spirit prevailed in the Western
Transvaal after the outbreak of World
War I, for it seemed to a section of the
Oudstryders that this was their chance of
regaining the independence of the old
republics. Siener Van Rensburg' s prophe-
cies appeared to favour this belief, thus
adding to the excitement.

One man who could have put a spark to
this gunpowder was General De la Rey.
Tension mounted when it became known
that on August 15 the General would
address a meeting at Treurfontein in the
district. Hundreds of excited burghers
attended that meeting with their own
horses, rifles, ammunition and rations.
They were ready to obey any order given
by General De la Rey.

"Go home and await events," was the
unexpected advice uttered by De la Rey.
"Remain cool and calm." So the burghers
rode home, and the rebellion in that
district was delayed. Wise old General
Botha, the Prime Minister of the period,
had seen the danger and persuaded
General de la Rey to stand by the
government.

There were many who would have
listened avidly to Siener van Rensburg at
that meeting. The prophet disappointed
them by remaining on his farm.

Meanwhile a conspiracy was being
organized by General C. F. Beyers to start
a rebellion, with September 15 as the date.
Beyers counted on De la Rey's help. The
two generals met in Pretoria, and on the
evening of September 15 they drove
towards Johannesburg together by car. No
one will ever know what passed through
the mind of General de la Rey that day,
but the figure 15 must often have risen
before him.

In the light of later events it seems
probable that General Beyers intended to
rush De la Rey to Potchefstroom, where
thousands of Active Citizen Force men
were in camp. Beyers hoped that the
inspiring figure of De la Rey would tip the
scale in favour of rebellion. De la Rey
may or may not have been fully aware of
the plot.

That night fate joined in the drama.
Bandits known as the "Foster gang" had
entered a house at Turffontein, robbed and
murdered a man, and escaped in a stolen

motor-car. All cars were being stopped by
a police cordon round the city; and the
force had special orders to see that a car
with three men in it - members of the
armed and dangerous gang - did not
escape. The police had instructions to fire
on any car which ignored their challenge.

Beyers knew nothing of this. When his car
was challenged he imagined that the
police were trying to arrest him, and he
told his driver to defy them. Again and
again the police sprang out and were left
behind. Then one constable fired and
General de la Rey was killed.

So the meaning of the prophecy was
revealed at last ... the number 15, General
de la Rey returning home without his hat,
the carriage covered with flowers. "Some
high honour," Van Rensburg had said.
General de la Rey was given a State
funeral.

Always there was some truth in the
visions of Van Rensburg, and his own

inability (at times, but not always) to
interpret the symbols made one of the
most baffling sides of his nature. Some-
times previous experience guided him; he
knew some of the friendly and unfriendly
symbols. But with all his strange power he
could not save his friend De la Rey,
though he would certainly have done so if
he could have guessed the truth behind his
mysterious vision.

Siener van Rensburg rode away from his
farm and joined the rebels, but he carried
no arms. Once again he took up the
position of trusted adviser. Again he saw
the enemy in the form of animals. General
Kemp was his leader. Kemp listened
carefully to everything that Van Rensburg
had to say. When they were in the desert
to the west of Kuruman the rebels ran
short of water. Kemp decided to make for
a well, but the prophet told him it was
being guarded by government troops.
Kemp then approached cautiously, saw
the troops over the dunes and estimated

that his forces were strong enough to take
the position. He was successful. Later on
Kemp was almost surrounded, but Van
Rensburg indicated the way out and the
rebels escaped. There came a time,
however, when the rebel commando was
rounded up. Van Rensburg had forecast
capture, and told his comrades that they
would be taken to Johannesburg by train.

I have already mentioned the prophet's
experiences in the Fort. He had to submit
to his beard being shaved off, and this he
looked upon as one of the great humilia-
tions of his life. It was not often that his
philosophic outlook deserted him.

During the last year of World War I, the
prophet told his friends in the Wolma-
ransstad district that a great plague would
sweep the world, and that South Africa
would be affected. In the month of
October came the so-called Spanish
influenza, a scourge more deadly than
bubonic plague.

Two white horses, tired and thin, appeared
before Van Rensburg' s eyes after the
armistice. He had seen horses like that
before, and thus he was able to find a
meaning. It was the post-war depression.

Towards the end of 1921 there was a
meeting between General Christian de
Wet and Siener van Rensburg at the house
of Mr. Gert Malan, principal of the
Roodepoort farm school near Dewetsdorp,
Orange Free State. The wives of Mr.
Malan and General de Wet, and a Mr.
Cornells Kruger, were also present. After
lunch General de Wet announced that the
prophet had something to say.

"I do not know exactly what it means,"
began the prophet in his traditional
manner, "but I have seen General de Wet
riding south from Bloemfontein with
thousands of people following him. At the
same time there was a dark cloud over
Johannesburg."

Then Van Rensburg turned to Kruger (a
Hollander by birth) and went on:
"Hollandertjie, you are also under the
dark cloud, but God will protect you and
not a hair on your head will be harmed."

Six months later General de Wet died in
Bloemfontein. The General's horse
followed the coffin, and thousands made
their way in procession to the Women's
Monument, south of the town, for the
burial of the South African War hero.

Martial law was in force in Johannesburg
at that time. The revolution was on, and
there was fighting along the length of the
Reef. Cornells Kruger had to pass through
the danger zone on urgent business. He
was warned by the railway authorities that
he would have to travel at his own risk;
and indeed some of the bullets passed
very close to him. He was one of those
who had reason to remember that
prophecy of Siener van Rensburg.

Kruger provided a sidelight on General de
Wet's attitude towards Van Rensburg.
They were talking over old times on the
veld during the South African War and
the Rebellion when the General remarked:
"Ou Nicolaas, if you imagine that you are
a prophet I'll knock you out. When you
saw those visions, that was God working
on our behalf."

I have said that the prophet disliked
political discussions. In December 1923,
however, he informed a Vryburg farmer,
Mr. B. Mussman, that General Smuts
would soon dissolve Parliament and hold
a general election, and that the National-
ists would win. Mussman said he could
not believe it, because Parliament had
only been elected in 1921. Nevertheless,
General Smuts dissolved Parliament a few
months later, and the Nationalist-Labour
government came into power.

As far back as 1925 the prophet saw a
wagon leaving Cape Town, a Boer flag
and thousands of men and women round a

koppie. "It is not a war, it is a trek," he
said. Years afterwards his hearers realised
that they had been given the first
description of the Voortrekker centenary
celebrations held in 1938.

Towards the end of his life Siener van
Rensburg had a vision which was
interpreted (after the event) to refer to the
1926 alluvial diamond rush at
Lichtenburg. Sometime before that the
prophet had a clear vision of one of his
sons holding a diamond as large as a
man's thumb. This son went to the
diggings, worked hard for six months, and
then wrote home saying that he had found
nothing. He had given up hope, and
suggested returning home. "Try again for
a few more days," advised the father. The
son turned up a forty-carat diamond.
"Now your luck has ended - let your
brother take over," wrote the father. The
brother had a marvellous run of luck,
finding small diamonds almost every
week he was on the diggings.

Five of the last prophecies made by Siener
van Rensburg were printed in the "Cape
Times" on March 16, 1926, and today his
reputation might stand or fall by those
remarkable predictions alone. The
newspaper files bear witness.

(1) Hereniging is shaping itself on the
horizon with the shade of General
Botha hovering over all. (Fusion of
the South African Party and the old
Nationalist Party came about in
1933.)

(2) There will be an orgy of war in
which white and black will be
equally involved. (An easy prophecy
ten years later, but in 1926 there were
no such fears anywhere in the world.)

(3) A mealie harvest will be wasted.
(Too vague. No areas or dates given.)

(4) A new diamond mine will be
discovered. (Alexander Bay the
following year.)

(5) Afrikaner exiles will return from the
Argentine. (They did.) Siener van
Rensburg is said to have foreseen his
own death, which occurred on March
11, 1926 on his farm Rietkuil in the
Wolmaransstad district. More than
eight hundred people attended the
funeral of the gentle and beloved
prophet.

One of the officiating ministers took as
his text Van Rensburg' s own motto: "Die
Here regeer".

Van Rensburg' s sons Niklaas and
Johannes remained on the farm after their
father' s death.

I never met the man, but I can imagine
him from Harm Oost's story. "When a
vision appeared, he felt a pressure in his
head," said Harm Oost. "Then he would
go off by himself and fall into a sort of
trance. If you had known that man you
would believe in him now."

It is difficult not to believe in Siener van
Rensburg. His very mistakes suggest that
he saw visions, and he never pretended
that his is interpretations were unerring.

Chapter 5

The Ridgeback Mystery

HUMANS LOVE dogs and mysteries. That
may explain why the Rhodesian ridgeback
has become South Africa's favourite dog.
Whenever I study the fiddle-shaped strip
of hair bent forwards, the strange escut-
cheon of the breed, I find myself trying to
peer through the mists of time in search of
the origin of this magnificent, fawn-
coloured hound.

Many ridgeback owners have accepted a
theory that the ancestors of their dogs
came long ago from the island of Phu

Quoc in the Gulf of Siam. Nowhere else
in the world, except South Africa and Phu
Quoc, are ridged dogs part of the scenery.
Moreover the South African ridgeback
strongly resembles the Phu Quoc dog in
build, height, weight and colour. You find
the ridge more prominent in the Phu
Quoc, but that is a detail. These dogs have
ancestors in common, and the ridge
proclaims them as blood relatives in spite
of the thousands of miles of sea which
separate them.

Any layman who enters the sacred realm
of thoroughbred dogs and upsets firm
beliefs is liable to find a growling pack of
owners snapping at his heels. I am taking
this risk when I declare firmly that our
popular ridgebacks did not come from
Indo-China. All the experts say so, and all
the experts are wrong. It is a romantic
story, an old story with twists and
surprises.

According to the experts, the natives of
Phu Quoc bred their ridgebacks as hunting

Humans love dogs and mysteries. That may explain why the Rhodesian Ridgeback has become South
Africa's favourite dog.

dogs and sold them on the mainland of
Indochina. Phoenician traders, or some
other very early navigators, brought
specimens of the Phu Quoc to South
Africa, and so the ridge appeared in many
of the dogs owned by the Hottentots.

Captain T. C. Hawley and Mr. G. C. Dry,
in a brochure published by the Transvaal
Rhodesian Ridgeback Club in 1949,
suggested that the Hottentots, who have
Asiatic features, migrated overland all the
way from the East, bringing Phu Quoc
dogs with them. This would have been a
remarkable journey, both for dogs and
men. But there was no such journey.

Ridgeback owners regard their dogs as
true South Africans, the only pure-bred
dogs that really belong to the country. I
hope to show that the ridgeback is an ever
better South African than proud owners
imagine. I make bold to say that the
ridgeback has no canine Indo-Chinese
blood.

First of all, what is a ridgeback? The
breed is so new that standards vary, and if
my description does not tally with the
views of the experts I shall be torn to
pieces. (Yes, the dog world is a jealous
world.) However, an owner I trust tells me
that the most important point of all is the
mysterious ridge, and a dog without a
clearly-defined ridge is not recognised as
a member of the breed. "The ridge should
be tapering and symmetrical and should
include two identical "crowns" opposite
one another. Moreover, the ridge should
start just behind the shoulders (where it is
broad) and should continue up to a point
between the prominence of the hips.

Some years ago I ventured on a
description which awarded the ideal
ridgeback a black nose. This brought me a
reprimand from the owner of a brown-
nosed, near-champion ridgeback, one of
the leading six in the country. The owner
informed me that the pure-bred ridgeback
should be a strong and active dog, capable

of great endurance with a fair amount of
speed. The South African Police started
training ridgebacks years ago, and it is
possible that this breed may replace the
Doberman as the finest dog on a scent.
Ridgebacks will follow a spoor on the
veld at fifteen miles an hour. They also
make grand watchdogs.

The ridgeback has a fairly long head with
flat skull and powerful muzzle. In colour,
a short wheaten coat is preferred, fawn
and brown are permissible and white
points are allowed. A good show-dog
must have a deep chest and strong legs.

Now glance at the ridgeback as it was in
the mongrel days before shows. Dogs
were leaping on the beach when the
Portuguese explorers stepped on to South
African soil, and there must have been
ridgebacks in the welcoming committee.
You may remember Vasco da Gama's
report: "The Hottentots of St. Helena Bay
have numerous dogs which resemble
those of Portugal and bark like them."

Theal the historian, writing very early this
century and many years before the
ridgeback became fashionable, remarked:
"The principal property of the Hottentots
consisted of horned cattle and sheep ...
The only other domestic animal was the
dog. He was an ugly creature, his body
being shaped like that of a jackal, and the
hair on his spine being turned forward;
but he was a faithful, serviceable animal
of his kind."

It is estimated that the Hottentots migrated
into Southern Africa during the fourteenth
century, and there is little doubt that they
brought the forerunners of the ridgebacks
with them. One might have expected a
hunting people like the Bushmen to have
possessed dogs. They arrived in the south
centuries before the Hottentots, and dogs
would have aided them enormously in
their dangerous way of life. Cave men in
many lands tamed the wolf and the fox,
the jackal and coyote. It was one of
mankind's great early discoveries, like

stone weapons and fire. They captured the
puppies of wild members of the dog tribe
and taught them to guard the human
families, to scent danger and bring the
wounded quarry to bay. There may have
been unknown species of wild dog, now
extinct, from which the tame dogs of the
world are descended; or Darwin may have
been right when he said that our dogs
were originally wolves of various species.
It is a fact that where you find savage
hunters, the dogs bear a strong
resemblance to the wild dog species of the
territory. Even in civilised lands, the
likeness often remains; the dogs of Egypt
are obviously related to the wolves of
Egypt; and many of the dogs of the
surviving Bushmen in Southern Africa are
clearly cousins of the black-backed jackal.

Yet I think it can be assumed that the
Bushmen never succeeded in taming dogs,
and that they secured their first dogs from
the Hottentots. You find the bones of dogs
in the oldest caves of Europe; and the

cave painters of France and Spain
depicted man's oldest friend in many a
hunting scene. Bushman caves in South
Africa, have yielded many queer relics;
but strange to say, you do not find the
remains of dogs (except in comparatively
recent middens) or pictures of dogs.

So you have to go back to the Hottentot,
the origin of the Hottentot, to discover the
origin of the ridgeback. Scientists agree
that the Hottentot has a lot of Bushman
blood in him. It seems that a race of
Hamites moved southwards from Egypt
and mingled with the Bushmen they
encountered in the neighbourhood of the
Great Lakes. Thus a new race arose, with
a click language like that of the Bushmen,
yet retaining something of the old Hamitic
structure. These people, the Hottentots,
travelled on into the south with their cattle
(known much later as Afrikander cattle),
their sheep and their dogs. All these
domestic animals were toughened by the
long trek through the tropical bush to the

healthy lands of the south. The dog met
every wild beast from the jackal to the
lion, and those that survived were ideal
hunting dogs.

No one will ever know where and when
the ridgeback developed its ridge of hair.
Egypt's most famous dog was the
greyhound, and there is still a hint of the
greyhound in the ridgeback. But there is
not a scrap of evidence to suggest that any
ridged species of dog had its origin in
Egypt. The ridge characteristic may have
arisen during the trek or after the
Hottentot tribes had settled in South West
Africa and South Africa.

Apparently the "Hottentot dog" (as the old
ridgeback was called) aroused no interest
among white people in South Africa until
the middle of last century when the
farmers round Swellendam developed a
breed for hunting in the mountains. This
was a cross between the boerhond (a
mongrel, according to my Afrikaans
dictionary) and the Hottentot dog, with a

dash of Irish terrier blood. These dogs had
square jaws and were noted for their
courage. The breed is now extinct.

One of the pioneer missionaries to settle
in what is now Rhodesia was the Rev.
Charles Helm, who travelled up by wagon
in 1875 from Swellendam. He had his
wife and daughter (afterwards Mrs. Jessie
Lovemore) with him. Mrs. Lovemore has
stated that some well-wisher in the
Swellendam district presented her father
with a pair of ridgebacks. Helm's ridge-
backs are regarded as the progenitors of
the modern Rhodesian ridgebacks.
Cornells van Rooyen, the big game hunter
and friend of Selous, borrowed the dogs
from Helm and bred a pack for hunting.
Van Rooyen had trekked into
Matabeleland with his father. He became
an ivory hunter at the age of fourteen, and
killed eight elephants during his first
season. "A pleasant, intelligent man who
spoke good English," was a description of
Van Rooyen which I found. "He was a

great admirer of Selous, though he
himself was no mean hunter." Such was
the man who founded the Rhodesian
ridgeback breed.

For years the early ridgebacks were
known as lion dogs, and a memorable
sight it was to watch a fearless pack
baying a lion and finally dashing in to kill
the lord of the veld. Today, however, the
lion dog is a separate breed, about the size
of a large Alsatian, with a large "ruff of
hair like a lion's mane. The ridge seems to
have diminished or disappeared in this
breed.

Rhodesian pioneers found the ridgeback-
lion dog extremely useful, and it is on
record that a mining commissioner
secured another pair from Ceres towards
the end of last century. A peculiar story
which is perfectly true also has a bearing
on the Rhodesian breed. Mr. J. N. R.
Labuschagne, a member of the Moodie
trek of 1896, went down to Beira three
years later and brought a large black dog

called Voorman for twenty pounds on
board a German ship. This somewhat
mysterious dog had a ridge. Labuschagne
then bought a red pointer bitch, and
developed a ridgeback breed which be-
came popular in the Chipinga district. For
nearly three decades after that, however,
the various ridgeback types in Rhodesia
were looked upon as useful mongrels. It
was not until the Salisbury dog show of
1927 that ridgebacks were exhibited as a
distinct breed.

No wonder Rhodesians look upon their
ridgebacks with pride, for they grew up
out of pioneer conditions. These were the
dogs they depended on to guard their
camps, to keep hyenas and jackals and
even lions away from their tents. Many a
ridgeback was carried off by a leopard
when it ventured too far from the camp
fire; the great cats loved dog meat.

Ridgebacks pursued elephants, rhino,
buffalo. The bravest dogs of other breeds
flinched when they scented lion for the

first time. Ridgebacks stood their ground,
held the lion at bay and drew its attention
from their master.

So the brave ridgeback returned south of
the Limpopo in a new, pure form, a
standardised ridgeback about twenty-six
inches in height, weighing up to seventy-
five pounds. A club was formed in the
Transvaal in 1945 to maintain the purity
of the breed in the Union. More recently
the ridgeback has ousted the collie, the
cocker spaniel, the bulldog and other old
South African favourites, and is holding
its own easily as South Africa's typical
and best loved dog. The rise of the
ridgeback is all the more remarkable when
you consider the fact that as recently as
1920, two specimens were exhibited in
the Pretoria Zoo as curiosities.

Ridgebacks were first seen in England in
1928, when Mrs. Foljamb imported two
specimens. They aroused great interest at
the Kennel Club Show at the Crystal
Palace. Ridgebacks are still rare at shows

in England. Banshee, a four-month-old
bitch, was presented to the Queen, and
Princess Elizabeth received a dog puppy
named Hoolie, during the 1947 Royal
visit to Rhodesia. These were both
magnificent specimens of the Rhodesian
ridgeback breed, a perfect pair of dark
wheaten colour.

Canadians have imported ridgebacks to
hunt the cougar or "mountain lion". There
are hundreds of ridgebacks in the United
States; and in 1955 the ridgeback was
admitted to the American Kennel Club
stud book - the first new breed to be
admitted in ten years and the one hundred
and twelfth breed to be so honoured.
Some dogs have taken thousands of years
to reach the aristocracy. The ridgeback
has come up to nobility within a few
decades.

Meanwhile some authorities have said
that the old Hottentot dog with the ridge is
extinct. I doubt whether it has died out
completely, for I saw more than one

specimen in 1936 at a Kalahari camp
where a band of Bushmen had gathered.
My old friend, the late Donald Bain,
desert guide and hunter, pointed out these
dogs to me. "Bushmen never sell their
dogs," Bain declared. "The ridgeback type
owned by the Bushmen is becoming rare,
and I think they are the finest hunting
dogs in the world. They will catch a jackal
within twenty yards. You will never hear
them bark unless a lion comes too close to
the camp. And when old people are left in
the desert to die, according to Bushman
custom, the dogs stay on and guard them
to the end."

Now to return to the ridged Phu Quoc on
the other side of the world. What is this
dog? I have seen only photographs of the
Phu Quoc, for it is a rare dog and is said
to be dying out. Marquis Barfhelemy, who
held a concession from the French
Government for the island of Phu Quoc,
once sent three of the dogs to the Paris
Zoo; but dog fanciers in Britain and

America read the first detailed accounts of
the Phu Quoc shortly before World War
II. Clifford Hubbard, author of authori-
tative works on dogs and their origin, then
proclaimed the Phu Quoc as the ancestor
of the ridgeback.

You might easily form the same
impression. Captain R. D. S. Gwatkin,
one of the leading South African
authorities on the ridgeback, wrote in
1933 that the Phu Quoc with its long
head, reddish eyes, erect ears, tawny coat
with darker hair on the back, and drawn
up belly, irresistibly recalled the jackal.
On the other hand the forward turned-up
hair on the spine was shared only by the
Hottentot dog.

Gwatkin stated that certain dogs of the
East were probably derived from the
Egyptian jackal, the species which
produced the chow, the edible dog of
China, and other related breeds. The
ridge, according to Gwatkin, emerged in
one of these Eastern breeds. Gwatkin

argues that the Phu Quoc ridgeback must
have been taken to South Africa, because
the Easterners were navigators and the
Hottentots were not. He quotes the slender
evidence of a Malayan canoe washed up
on the beach at Port Elizabeth as proof.

Other authorities have fallen into the same
trap. Hubbard credits the Phoenicians with
introducing the dog into Africa, and says
that the journey must have been made by
sea, or other ridgeback breeds would have
been left along the overland line of march.
Hubbard gives the bloodhound as another
important ancestor of the ridgeback, as
bloodhounds were sent to South Africa to
follow runaway slaves.

I am unable to find a trace of evidence
fixing the Phu Quoc as an ancient breed of
dog. There is no reason why a lion dog
should have originated on an island in the
Gulf of Siam, and in fact it did not do so.
Phoenicians probably did sail round
Africa six hundred years before Christ,
but no historian has found records of a

Phoenician voyage to Siam and then to
South Africa.

Arabs were carrying slaves in their dhows
from East Africa to China a thousand
years ago. It may have been an Arab
navigator, or a Portuguese, or a Dutch
skipper only a few centuries ago, who
landed ridgeback dogs on Phu Quoc
island. These dogs undoubtedly travelled
from west to east. There was a huge
reservoir of ridgebacks in Africa; but on
the island, by all accounts, there were
never very many. Dog experts who favour
the Phu Quoc origin obviously never
thought about it very much. They were
not historians. They tried to make the tail
wag the dog.

On the island, the ridgeback kept nearly
all of its African characteristics. It must
have mixed with the chow, for the Phu
Quoc has a blackish tongue and some-
times a black roof to the mouth. Other-
wise it is still the old African ridgeback,

with a purity which it could have
maintained only in isolation.

Call him what you will, rifrughond or
pronkrug, leeuhond or saalrughond,
Hottentot dog or Rhodesian ridgeback. He
is good tempered with children, graceful
in movement, a "one-man" dog with as
fine and faithful a character as any. The
ridgeback is no oriental but a true South
African.

And that mysterious ridge of hair bent
forwards, the mark of the breed? That
must be a legacy of the wild, birthplace of
all the world's dogs, but so long ago that
the animal that bestowed it will never be
traced now.

Chapter 6

Genevieve In The Jungle

WHEN I was too young to foist myself on
expeditions going to romantic places I
formed the habit of watching the adven-
turers depart. Thus I stood in the rain
outside the City Hall in Cape Town on
August 29, 1913, an envious schoolboy
staring at the weirdest motor contraption
ever seen in the city.

Little did I realize that the shadow of
death hung over Captain Raleigh Napier
Kelsey, leader of that expedition. He was
the first motorist to leave Cape Town for
Cairo, and I always wanted to uncover the
narrative of events along the way as the
doomed man rode towards the final
tragedy. No one made a book of it, though
it was a far more hazardous effort than
later exploits which are now regarded as
epic journeys.

To satisfy my curiosity at last, I have
followed the tracks of those almost
forgotten pioneers. The late Mr. Napier
Devitt, well known South African
magistrate and author, was a cousin of
Captain Kelsey, and he gave me generous
help shortly before his death. Here and
there I found other people who
remembered the expedition. Finally the
newspaper files, diaries and letters
enabled me to piece the story together and
learn poor Kelsey' s secret.

I think most people enjoyed motoring far
more in those days when lamps were lit
with matches and it was regarded as a
triumph on a cold morning when the
handle started the engine. Some recapture
the charm by running veteran and vintage
cars. The first car I ever drove was an
1898 Benz. I was a schoolboy, and two
friends had bought this relic from a
scrapheap for fifteen shillings and
transformed it into a panting monster
capable of occasional short journeys.
Never again have I felt the same pride at
the wheel.

The car I was studying that day in 1913
was a great deal better than the Benz. She
was a Scot, a Genevieve of the future
London-Brighton rally; but she had been
named Louise of Argyll by the Duchess of
Argyll. Her horse-power was twenty-five
to fifty, and even in those days she was
equipped with front-wheel brakes. Made
by the Argyll Company, she had a most
peculiar body design. It was composed of

two large khaki-painted steel shells which
could be lifted off the car and bolted
together end to end, forming a small
pontoon. With this device, which would
float a load of three tons, the motorists
hoped to cross unbridged rivers. A high
green tent, drawn over hoops, sheltered
the members of the party and their heap of
stores, while surplus kit was carried in a
large trailer.

Experienced motorists in Cape Town
shook their heads and declared that this
lumbering power-driven wagon was
bound to come to grief. The design was
faulty, they said, and the load was too
heavy. They were right, though the car
went a great deal farther than most people
imagined it would be possible for any car
to go at that uncertain period of motoring.

Captain Kelsey was then a man of thirty-
three, a regular army officer. He had
served in the South African War and had
always longed to see the veld again. His
father was a wealthy man, and in various

other ways Captain Kelsey raised funds
for this Cape to Cairo expedition. The
Argyll firm presented him with the car, of
a chassis type which was stated to have
given excellent service under rough
conditions in the Argentine. One huge
ranch there had ordered thirty similar cars
as a result of tests The makers claimed
that the engine would continue to work
under water, and drove it through part of
Loch Lomond where the water was two
and a half feet deep The wheels were forty
inches in diameter, and spare wheels
could be bolted to the main wheels to
provide a broader tread in sand or mud.

Kelsey hoped to compile a scientific
report on the whole route, including
possible white settlement areas. Two
members of the expedition, Mr. J. C.
Pickersgill Cunliffe and Mr. J. M. Gilli-
land, were selected as trained observers
for this purpose. Another young man,
Count Cornegliano, was sent ahead to
Northern Rhodesia to organise petrol

supplies. There he appears to have gone
hunting and faded out of the scene, for the
meagre records of the ill-fated expedition
do not mention him again. Mr. J. Scott-
Brown was the photographer and
cinematographer, an enterprising pioneer
among newsreel-camera men. He had
been in the Sudan, filming game, and had
just come from the Balkan war. Finally
there was Mr. Angus McAskill, really the
most important member of the party, for
he had been lent by the makers of the car
and he was the only man who could drive
and repair it.

McAskill drove into the grounds of
Buckingham Palace shortly before the
expedition left England, and Scott-Brown
took his first pictures while King George
V talked to the members and inspected the
car. Kelsey and his party landed in Cape
Town from the Balmoral Castle early in
August 1913, but the car arrived by a later
ship.

I have described 1913 as an uncertain
period of motoring. It was still possible to
open up new routes close to Cape Town,
and during that year the sandy run to Cape
Point was accomplished for the first time.
Six years before Kelsey's expedition,
however, Mr. Frank Connock had covered
the wagon track from Durban to
Johannesburg and on to Cape Town,
fourteen hundred miles in a single-
cylinder car of eight horse-power. A far
more sensational journey of 1907 was that
of Lieut. Graetz, a German, who set out
from Dar-es-Salaam and arrived in
Johannesburg sixteen months later. Graetz
had to make his own bridges and cut a
passage for his car through many a mile of
bush. He had covered nearly four
thousand miles, and he had hoped to cross
Africa from German East to Swakopmund
in German South West Africa; but for
some reason he abandoned the venture in
Johannesburg. Possibly his feat had

encouraged Kelsey to attempt the more
ambitious journey.

"Mind you, it is quite an erroneous idea
that we are going to sit in a luxurious car
at our ease looking at the scenery," Kelsey
told the reporters in Cape Town. "Most of
the time only one man will be in the car,
and we shall probably take three or four
hours on occasions to cover one mile. We
shall walk through all the bad parts, for
the car must be saved as much strain as
possible. It is very heavy - almost too
heavy, for when packed it weighs five
tons."

Kelsey carried picks, shovels, jacks and
tools to build light bridges over small
streams. Three petrol tanks held a total of
sixty gallons. The car had done ten miles
to the gallon in England, but under South
African conditions the car sometimes used
a gallon every three miles. Some
misguided technical expert had advised
Kelsey to have a special back-axle fitted

without differential gear. This was the
cause of many delays and much trouble.

Cape Town motorists inspected the Argyll
and its equipment in Benjamin and
Lawton's showroom. They climbed into
the open body, seven feet long and
curving inwards. Kelsey carried a
gramophone of the old-fashioned horn
type, and he played a record of a lamb
bleating. This cunning device, he
explained, would bring lions within range
of the cine-camera.

Royal Automobile Club members
entertained Kelsey and his companions to
lunch at the Opera House restaurant, with
Dr. Barnard Fuller in the chair. Mr. Harry
Hands, Mayor of Cape Town, told the
gathering that he was a motorist only by
the indulgence of his friends. "They are
the kindest and most decent people
imaginable," Mr. Hands added. "They are
always ready to sacrifice their own
comfort and give someone a lift, and the

time may come when I shall be a motorist
myself."

Yes, those were pioneer days, but Kelsey
assured the gathering that he would
succeed. "I have extreme faith in the
members of the expedition," Kelsey
declared. "They are all determined to see
the car through, and it is my firm opinion
that if there was only one man left the car
would reach Cairo. We know there are
swamps and sandy deserts and unfriendly
tribes ahead of us - yet the longer we
remain in Cape Town the more we realize
that the exploit is going to be easier than
we anticipated when we left England."

Kelsey stated that the British Government
was not financing the expedition, but it
had given him letters which would help
him in foreign colonies. "The expedition
is being financed by its members and
certain gentlemen in England have also
contributed," he said. "Expenses are going
to be heavy for native labour. This is more
a matter of money than of pluck and

endurance. This is essentially a private
venture, though national in a sense.
People in England are ignorant of
Northern Rhodesia and know nothing of
German East Africa. We shall explore
these territories and gather as much
information as we can."

According to Kelsey's estimate, the
journey from Cape Town to Cairo would
take eight months. "I expect to reach
Johannesburg in two or three days," he
said. "The route in Rhodesia will be
roughly that of the railway, but in Central
Africa I intend to make wide deviations to
visit districts as yet but little-known to
white men - territories where no motor-
car has ever been seen before."

So there was the tented car with its trailer
outside the City Hall, ready for the road.
Sir Frederic de Waal, Administrator of the
Cape, presented a flag composed of the
Turkish star and crescent at one end, the
arms of the Cape Province at the other and
the Union Jack in the centre. "All

explorers are advance guards of
civilisation," Sir Frederic told them. "You
are the first ever to undertake this journey,
and you will face great risks from lions
and leopards and fever, but I am fairly
sure that you will not exceed the speed
limit."

The crowd laughed at the joke, but Sir
Frederic had made an unintentional
prophecy.

"We'll do our best," said Kelsey in reply.

Pickersgill Cunliffe then rode ahead on
his Triumph motorcycle. He was the
expedition's scout, and he filled that role
until almost the end of the journey.
Shortly before noon the crowd gave three
cheers and the Argyll drove away. Mr.
Reuben Goldberg accompanied Kelsey to
pilot him as far as Maitland, and Mr. R. P.
Fitzgerald and other members of the
Royal Automobile Club followed as an
escort.

I was deeply impressed by this ceremony.
Now that I am following the expedition
after more than forty years, however, I am
discovering one anti-climax after another.
It seems that Kelsey had covered only a
couple of miles of the seven thousand
mile route before the overheated radiator
demanded attention. There was tyre
trouble at Parow. Soon afterwards the
radiator had to be repaired again, and late
that night the explorers dropped thank-
fully into bed at the Kraaifontein hotel.
Cunliffe meanwhile had reached Paarl,
where he found a number of local
motorists waiting to welcome the
expedition. "I found the road very bumpy
and hard to follow," reported Cunliffe.
And when Kelsey did not arrive, Cunliffe
declared: "They must have lost their way
in the forest."

Next day the Argyll thundered into Paarl,
and there she remained for several days
while drastic alterations were made.
Kelsey had realized that the engine simply

could not pull the load. He sent the trailer,
tents, blankets, spare parts and other
equipment by rail to Broken Hill. A
blacksmith cut down the steel body, so
that the chassis was relieved of a weight
of two tons.

No longer was it possible to use the steel
shells, but it is doubtful whether such a
pontoon would have carried the car. The
radiator had to be sent back to Cape Town
for repair. Kelsey and his men spent their
days pleasantly climbing the mountain
and visiting fruit farms.

I think that was part of the magic of old-
time motoring. You were on a roulette
wheel, and you never knew where it
would stop; what places you would come
to know much better than you expected;
what people you would meet. Today a
village is an unknown blur as you pass by
on the national road at high speed.
Motorists of old made friends.

Kelsey called at many karoo farms. Mrs.
W. Wilkinson, who was at Brakfontein,
fifty-seven miles from Beaufort West, told
me how the roaring, steaming Argyll
came up to their homestead. The
expedition stayed there for the night, and
the family agreed that Kelsey was a
charming man. In the morning, relays of
helpers carried gallon after gallon of
boiling water for the radiator before
McAskill could start the engine.
Nevertheless the Argyll reached Beaufort
West three days after leaving Paarl. All
the twenty car owners in the Beaufort
West district turned out to meet Kelsey,
and photographs show the women
wearing long dust-coats, veils and motor-
bonnets.

Kelsey was welcomed to Kimberley by
the deputy mayor on the City Hall steps.
"Early difficulties inseparable from all
great undertakings have been overcome,"
Kelsey wrote to a friend. "Lessons learned
in the hard school of experience have

proved valuable. We have found the road
from Cape Town rough, yet occasionally
our speedometer has reached thirty-five
miles an hour! Across the veld the road is
just a track which wagons have taken for
ages past. When it becomes too rough, or
when the wheel-ruts become too deep, a
wagon will strike a new course, other
wagons follow and so a new track is
made. To prevent the main roads being
washed away, mounds as high as two feet
are built at right angles across them, the
object being to divert the water so that it
will not flow along the ruts and create
deep channels. The unwary motorist
breaks springs if he comes upon one of
these mounds at speed. All along they
have been our great trouble. Continually
slowing down and picking up speed again
is a strain on the engine. A small, light car
can go across the mounds diagonally, and
then the shock is only slight. Our car is
big and the track is usually narrow, so we
have to go straight at them. The occupants

of the back seat are continually pounded
about."

You may remember that Kelsey had given
an estimate of two or three days for the
run from Cape Town to Johannesburg. He
took nearly twenty days, and one Rand
newspaper commented: "Captain Kelsey
seems to be inadequately prepared and
informed and has but the faintest idea of
the difficulties he will encounter. He will
need £1,500 for native labour. The car is
an unsuitable monster."

Kelsey replied that a light car would not
carry the tools, spares and ammunition.
Cinema film alone weighed one
hundredweight. Food and petrol depots
had been established at Bulawayo, Aber-
corn, Tabora, Kampala and Khartoum.
Apart from those points he had no fixed
idea of the route he would follow, and no
reliable maps.

"Members of this expedition have placed
their last penny in it," Kelsey stated. "We

are all taking it very seriously and we
mean to get through. At the end lectures
will be given, illustrated with cinema
pictures."

Ten days after leaving Johannesburg,
Scott-Brown was cranking his camera
while the Argyll drove past the statue of
Rhodes in Bulawayo. They were making
better time. Donkeys had hauled the car
through the dry bed of the Limpopo. Two
days were spent on the huge Liebig ranch,
in the lion country north of the river. Then
they had pressed on through the green
bush country and the Matopos. They spent
nine days in Bulawayo, railing cases of
petrol ahead and preparing the car for the
ordeal facing them. They knew it would
be an ordeal, though not one of them
could have imagined the hardships and
problems of the next seven weeks.

I found a letter written by Cunliffe, the
motor cyclist, from Wankie at the end of
October. "We were warned in Bulawayo
that we would have to fight our way to the

Victoria Falls," wrote Cunliffe. "No man
can now persuade me that there is any
worse country in Africa to travel over. For
days we have not had any solid food. Our
strength has failed. Sustained effort is
now impossible."

That was years before the all-weather
motor road, of course, but travellers had a
choice of three routes from Bulawayo to
the Victoria Falls. There was the old
wagon road cut by the pioneers; a later
route used by the mail coach, drawn by
trotting oxen; and the railway route,
which was shorter than the others but
deep in sand.

Kelsey chose the pioneer route, an
unhappy choice as it turned out. He
engaged an elderly native named Hans as
guide. On October 17 the expedition
drove out of Bulawayo, more heavily
loaded than usual. They knew there would
be no help for them in the remote bush
country, and so they had a miniature

workshop and all the spares they could
carry.

Often the pioneer road disappeared. There
were stretches where it seemed to have
been ploughed up, and then it would be
hidden in the long grass. Clear tracks were
sometimes misleading, and the motorists
would find themselves at an isolated farm
or railway siding. At every kraal Hans the
guide made inquiries, for Kelsey was
anxious to avoid sandy patches.

Every night they lit fires against lions,
leopards and elephant. Kelsey tried to cut
across country on a compass course, but it
did not pay; the trees they had to cut down
were high, whereas along the pioneer road
there were only young trees to remove.

The Argyll car had a clearance of thirteen
inches. This meant that the boulders
which wagons had passed over easily had
to be broken up before the car could
proceed.

I was fortunate in securing a copy of
Cunliffe's diary for this part of the
journey. It reveals the struggle vividly.

"October 17. Redbank 20 miles.

"October 18. Covered 43 miles. Badly
stuck in Gwaai River. Fourteen oxen
failed to move us. Got out finally with our
own block and tackle.

"October 19. Only 20 miles today. Tyre
troubles. "October 20. Covered 24 miles.

"October 21. Four miles total. Shocking
sand. Tree stumps bad. Tore tap out of
bottom of main petrol tank. Luckily the
leak was soon noticed, as passengers were
walking.

"October 22. Covered 20 miles, nearly all
in bottom gear, over broken-up vleis to
Chalmer' s farm.

"October 23. Good deal of sand but also
some hard ground. Covered 27 miles. Car
delayed by sticking in a deep, narrow
donga.

"October 24. Sand heavy. Twelve miles.

"October 25. Heavy day's work. Sand and
bush. Frequent halts to cut down trees.
Twenty-two miles.

"October 26. Hopelessly buried in a
narrow drift. No natives to help. No oxen.
A desperate case. Finally the five of us,
one with a strained back, got her out with
iron peg and block and tackle. Ten miles.

"October 27. A bad start. At 4 a.m. as I
lay in my blanket I heard a sound like a
moth's wings by my left ear. Almost at
once I discovered my mistake. A snake
was moving across my chest close to my
face. Not a move, not a sound until the
danger had passed.

"This day was even harder work, for we
were in mountainous country. Had to stop
continually either to cut down trees, break
boulders with sledgehammer, or else fill
in badly washed-out places. All this in the
heat of the day. Again stuck in a drift.
About 4 p.m., having got through the last

big drift, we made sure that we should
sleep the night on beds. Not so. Car
proceeding along a native path bordered
by tall grass when suddenly a wash-out
was observed. Before the car could be
stopped the front wheel had fallen in and
the rear wheel only remained on solid
ground by a few inches. It was two hours'
work getting the car out.

"Next day, when we were sure of a good
feed in Wankie, we found the steering
affected and had to use the blow-lamp to
bend the rod. McAskill was suffering
from influenza and jaundice, and Kelsey
had a bad back, so Gilliland and I did our
best. We did the job and were mortified to
find that we could not start the engine
again until we had pulled the magneto to
pieces. Then we had scarcely enough
strength to get the engine going. How
thankful we were to see Wankie."

They saw too much of Wankie, however,
for they broke the back-axle there and it
took four weeks to put the car in order.

McAskill was in such poor health that
Kelsey had to send him back to Cape
Town by train. Fortunately there was a
motor mechanic named Ewain Wilson at
the Wankie coal mine, and he agreed to
take McAskill' s place. Wilson brought a
bull terrier with him as watch-dog. Kelsey
also took on a head boy and eight carriers
at Wankie, to lighten the load on the car
over heavy stretches.

It was the rainy season, the weather was
threatening, and Kelsey had no tents with
him; the tents had been railed to Broken
Hill. There was no heavy rain, however,
or the Kelsey expedition would have
ended soon after leaving Bulawayo.
(Eleven years later the Court-Treatt
expedition entered this stretch in
December. This was the only motor-car
expedition ever to travel on its own
wheels all the way from Cape Town to
Cairo, but the section beyond Bulawayo
almost broke their hearts. They spent four
months digging their car out of the mud,

four months covering four hundred miles.)
Kelsey was lucky in that respect.

Many natives along this route had never
seen a motor-car before, and the arrival of
the Argyll caused a commotion at every
kraal. When they were hopelessly stuck in
the sand Cunliffe would ride to the nearest
farm and ask for a team of oxen. Kelsey
often marched ahead with the carriers,
shooting for the pot, feeding his natives
on buck and mealie meal. The carriers
jogged along with their loads at three
miles an hour, barefooted as a rule, but
using sandals over rough patches. It was
more pleasant walking than riding in the
car, for the mudguards had been taken off
at Wankie and now the passengers were
bombarded with clods of earth picked up
by the front wheels.

Kelsey employed a Bushman guide (two
shillings a day) on the last stretch, and this
man earned his pay. He pointed the
direction unerringly across vast plains
where the grass was often fifteen feet

high. Not a path, not a wagon spoor broke
the vista of grass. Yet they reached each
shallow river at the drift, the exact place
for the crossing.

Cunliffe was "bushed" with his motor-
bike on one occasion. When he failed to
link up with the rest of the expedition that
night, Kelsey and the others went out with
lamps, rifles and the motor horn to make
their presence known. The Bushman led
them straight to the lost man.

Sixty miles from the Victoria Falls the
expedition ran out of petrol. Kelsey sent
his carriers for the petrol, however, and
they completed the double journey in six
days. The stranded car came to life again
and arrived in Livingstone six weeks after
leaving Wankie. The distance is seventy-
five miles. No wonder a local newspaper
remarked: "The ultimate arrival of the
expedition at its destination is
problematical unless time is no object."

Soon after Kelsey entered Livingstone the
rains set in. However, Kelsey was assured
that the road ahead was hard and good, so
he paid off his carriers. Once again he
took the precaution of lightening the car
as much as possible, sending forward to
Broken Hill the spare parts he had carried
from Bulawayo, and also much personal
kit. In fact, when the car left Livingstone
each man had the clothes he wore, a spare
shirt, spare breeches, a pair of socks, a
few handkerchiefs and a sponge-bag.
"Truly a modest outfit to face the African
rainy season," remarked Gilliland.

Livingstone to the Kafue river, two
hundred and seventy miles. They had
covered nearly one hundred miles when
one driving shaft broke. This was the old
trouble, of course, due to the absence of a
differential gear. Kelsey, an intelligent
and determined leader, found a railway
siding with a telegraph office, and cabled
the makers of the Argyll car in Glasgow
for a differential, to be forwarded to

Broken Hill with all speed. There was a
spare driving shaft at Broken Hill, but
Kelsey knew he would never reach Cairo
without a differential.

He pushed on, the engine driving one of
the back wheels. They had to "corduroy"
the track at times by cutting down
saplings and placing them side by side to
support the car over mud holes. Once they
were stuck in a broad river with a rocky,
uneven bed, and they emerged only after
filling the uneven holes with stones.
Nevertheless, they found pleasure in the
country. Gilliland wrote: "This stage is by
far the most fascinating of the whole tour.
For days our route has lain through the
limitless African jungle, with mile after
mile of the same palms, the same thorn
bushes. True, there were occasional
stretches of grassland, but they were never
extensive and you could always see they
were hemmed in by the bush."

At last they came to where the
meadowland opened out, undulating

country stretching to the horizon. The
trees were noble, and at Kafue there was
the mighty river. White farmers gave
them butter and eggs, milk and bread,
tomatoes, lemons and bananas. It was
Christmas Eve, 1913, and it must have
seemed a long four months since they had
left Cape Town.

Sundown on Christmas Eve. They pitched
their camp on the river bank, but the
Kafue people heard they were there and
brought them in to dinner at the hotel.
They slept on proper beds at the Farmers'
Club that night. Kafue hospitality kept
them there until December 31, when they
took the battered car over the railway
bridge and covered the thirty-six miles to
Lusaka easily.

Lusaka is now the capital of Northern
Rhodesia. In 1913 it was merely a farming
settlement, populated by hardy
Afrikaners. The town consisted of the
railway station, hotel, police camp, three
stores, a butcher's shop and a bakery. The

farmers were all in town that night,
celebrating New Year's Eve at the hotel,
sending off rockets and firing their rifles
like true frontiersmen.

Among the police at Lusaka' was a young
trooper named Sillitoe. Long afterwards
he wrote his reminiscences and mentioned
the car which "stormed into our little
town". Sillitoe said it was a splendid
excuse for a celebration, and drank the
King's health at midnight with the
motorists. "It was as well for our good
spirits that we had no premonition of the
disastrous end," wrote Sillitoe. You will
find his memories of the expedition in his
book, "Cloak Without Dagger", by Sir
Percy Sillitoe, former chief of the British
Secret Service Organisation.

Next day they pushed on to Broken Hill,
eating tinned cod and plum-pudding. All
of them understood that they would be
leaving all hope of outside mechanical
help behind, once they had left the railway
line. But they had ample time to plan the

next stage of the journey, for the car was
delayed at Broken Hill from early in
January 1914 until April 18 that year.
Kelsey, you will remember, had cabled
Glasgow for a new back-axle with
differential. The outfit reached Broken
Hill on March 22, and the new mechanic
Wilson was able to fit the parts in place of
the old shafts.

"The car is now running excellently and
steering better," Wilson reported to the
factory. "We have dispensed with the
large, heavy, acetylene headlamps and
generator as running at night is
impossible. Captain Kelsey has gone
ahead with native carriers, taking petrol
and stores. Mr. Gilliland is with me, but I
am in charge of motoring arrangements
until the car party catches up with Captain
Kelsey. Roads are non-existent in this part
of the country, and no car can carry a load
heavier than five hundred pounds,
including the driver. Rain has been falling
continuously since we have been at

Broken Hill, and travelling has been
impossible. Now the rains have broken.
The next stretch of more than five
hundred miles consists of elephant grass
twelve to twenty feet high, with rivers to
be crossed on rafts of poles lashed to
native dug-outs."

Kelsey had gone forward along what is
now known as the Great North Road, the
bumpy road of white dust that runs from
Broken Hill to Abercorn at the southern
end of Lake Tanganyika. In those days
there was only a native path, traversed by
wagons and bicycles. Kelsey rode a
bicycle. Scott-Brown had marched off on
foot in a north-easterly direction to film
big-game, and Kelsey expected to meet
him. Cunliffe, the motor-cyclist, does not
appear in the final records of the
expedition. Evidently he packed up and
returned home during the long delay at
Broken Hill.

Living was cheap in the wilds before
World War I. The records show that

Kelsey was paying his carriers three
shillings a month. Natives in the villages
of thatched huts along the trail would give
you two eggs in exchange for a needle, or
a fowl for two pence.

Kelsey pitched a camp eight miles from
Chitambo mission, close to the spot where
David Livingstone died. On Easter
Sunday (April 12) a leopard entered his
camp. Here is Kelsey 's own description of
the encounter, written from the Chitambo
mission a few days later to Mr. W. G.
Rushbrook, headmaster of Kelsey 's old
school, St. Olave's, Southwark: "There
are few people I can write to as I am
gradually leaving my senses. Last Sunday,
Easter Sunday, I wounded a leopard eight
miles out of here in my camp. I followed
it up and we met again. My magazine
jammed and the leopard did good damage
to my rifle. Then we had a hand to hand
fight and I could only keep him on the
ground by thrusting my hand in its mouth
while with my right hand I readjusted the

jammed magazine and shot him. If the
mission had not been there I should never
have written any letter and even now there
is a possibility of poisoning. So although I
always mean to get through it is a small
chance. I left school in 1897. I have to
stop every now and then as I go off in a
faint."

Wilson and Gilliland were chugging
through the bush in the Argyll, seventy
miles from Chitambo, when a messenger
suddenly appeared in their path holding
up an envelope in a forked stick. There
were two messages, one from Kelsey, the
other from the Rev. Malcolm Moffat, the
missionary, begging them to drive the car
to the mission as fast as possible.

The car was moving forward almost at
walking pace, accompanied by a number
of natives who pushed it through difficult
patches. It was really quicker to walk, and
Gilliland marched on ahead with a few
carriers to reach Kelsey' s bedside. He
found Kelsey receiving attention from

Mrs. Moffat, a trained nurse. Kelsey could
not move, however, and there was no
doctor. The only doctor in the district was
too ill to attend to patients.

It was decided that Kelsey would have to
be carried by relays of natives on a
machila, a litter with a canopy. So on May
16 they started on a journey of more than
one hundred and fifty miles to Kashitu,
the nearest railway station. From there
they hoped to take Kelsey by train to the
Broken Hill hospital.

They met the car on the road, but decided
that Kelsey would be more comfortable
on the litter. However, the jolting caused
great pain, and Nelsey grew weaker and
weaker. Kelsey 's left knee and thigh were
hideously lacerated. One thumb was dis-
located, but the hand had been mauled so
severely that the dislocation could not be
reduced.

There was a doctor at Chiwefwe some
miles ahead, a Dr. Stohr who had become

a cattle farmer. So the car was sent ahead
of the slow column to warn the doctor that
a patient would be arriving in a desperate
state. Kelsey 's wounds had become
septic, and surgery was essential.

Dr. Stohr gave the anaesthetic himself and
was incising the terrible wounds when
Kelsey died. He was buried next day
(May 27) at a spot one hundred and ten
miles east of Kashitu, three-quarters of a
mile off the road.

"Such is the tragic end of the Cape to
Cairo expedition," Gilliland wrote. "It
was all so unnecessary. Kelsey wounded
the leopard, which retreated into the long
grass. The boys warned Kelsey not to go
after him. Kelsey misunderstood them and
thought they meant the leopard was dead.
While the leopard was mauling Kelsey an
unarmed boy seized the leopard by the
hind-legs and dragged it off him. Kelsey
reloaded and killed the leopard. The boy
was uninjured."

Gilliland added that he still thought it
would be possible to reach Cairo in the
Argyll car. The engine had never given
any trouble. However the car was
abandoned in the bush at Kashitu, a
rusting monument to a forgotten but
mighty effort. Kelsey had led his party for
more than two thousand miles from Cape
Town, over the hard karoo, through
tropical bush and jungle. He deserves to
rank with the later African pioneers, and I
think Gilliland was right when he said that
the Argyll was capable of reaching Cairo.

Gilliland returned to Cape Town by train,
but Scott-Brown went on alone, up the
trail Kelsey would have followed had he
lived. For a time Scott-Brown stayed on a
farm owned by Mr. G. H. Morton near
Abercorn. "With his primitive and
cumbersome apparatus he took moving
pictures of dangerous game of many
species," Mr. Morton told me. "Alas! He
went on to German East Africa and fell
into the hands of the enemy when war

broke out in August 1914. I learned that
he was interned, but never heard of him
again after the war. Presumably his films
of the Kelsey expedition and the big game
were lost."

Morton had one brighter memory of the
expedition. A number of British food
manufacturers had supplied Kelsey with
samples of their wares for publicity
purposes. When the party broke up, Scott-
Brown took cases of delicacies with him,
rare foods such as Morton had never seen
before in the bush. "The turtle soup was
good, but the canned mutton was even
better," he recalled.

As I said in the beginning, Kelsey had a
secret. His struggle was not only against
Africa. He set out full of the spirit of
adventure, but without enough money.
There came a time when Kelsey could no
longer appeal to his father. It was doubtful
whether the expedition would have got
beyond Kimberley if De Beers had not
given him one hundred pounds to help

him on his way. Kelsey wrote to a number
of leading British manufacturers, offering
to give publicity to their goods, and some
of them responded. He was almost
penniless in Wankie, but the generous
coal-miners raised a subscription which
gave new life to the expedition. Gilliland,
Scott-Brown and Cunliffe paid their own
expenses.

Kelsey always had the nagging worry of
the driver's wages, the native carriers and
the upkeep of the car on his mind. Money
troubles and long delays caused a great
deal of quarrelling, too, for expeditions
are seldom as harmonious as they may
appear on the surface. Kelsey was a brave
and resolute man, and his companions lost
a fine leader when he went to his lonely
grave in the Northern Rhodesian bush.

Chapter 7

Penniless Wanderers

FIFTEEN YEARS before Genevieve, the
Argyll car, plunged into the jungle, a
young man named Ewart Grogan set out
from Cape Town for Cairo. He used every
form of transport known in Africa last
century, mainly his own feet. On the lakes
he found canoes and dhows. He rode
horses and mules, and sometimes he used

ox-wagons. In the Nile swamps he
crawled on his stomach.

Grogan reached Cairo two and a half
years after leaving Cape Town. He was
the first of the Cape to Cairo travellers. "I
must say I envy you for you have done
that which has been for centuries the
ambition of every explorer," Cecil John
Rhodes wrote to him.

Grogan had money, but he needed
courage, too, in those days when Darkest
Africa was still a reality. After him have
come all sorts of people with and without
money, travelling hard and travelling soft.
The penniless wanderers have always
appealed to me, and in a Cape Town
newspaper office I was bound to meet
many of them. I listened to their stories,
and I tried to learn their secrets.

My typical penniless wanderer has a
faraway look in his eyes, his clothes are
light and strong and he wears massive
boots. Always he is ready, like a conjurer,

to produce a fat and fascinating book
containing hundreds of signatures and
rubber-stamps, a book revealing place-
names such as Wadi Haifa and Abercorn.
Even without the fifty pound pack on his
back, you have no difficulty in
recognizing him. He is the man who has
walked through Africa.

Year after year these determined travellers
arrive in Cape Town. They are not always
young, and nowadays many of them will
admit that they prefer riding to walking.
Some have bicycles, or motor bicycles,
scooters or even cars. They are seeing
Africa, for next to nothing.

The familiar tourist routes from Cairo to
Cape Town mean nothing to these
penniless wanderers. They have no
elaborate schedules, no baggage worth
mentioning, certainly no books of
travellers' cheques. But there is a healthy,
confident look about them. They have
been bold enough to tackle difficult tasks
without fearing hunger or friendless

poverty in distant lands. One man in a
thousand, perhaps, will give up security to
embark on such an enterprise. I have met
the courageous spirits who have done it.

One was a young Canadian who had
covered eight thousand miles in Africa in
five months at negligible cost. He did not
pretend to have walked. "It is impossible
to walk from Cairo to Cape Town," he
declared. "Anyone who tried would die in
the desert." He told me some of the
secrets of travelling on next-to-nothing.
"Never admit you can't do a job," he said.
"I accept every piece of work offered. If I
fail - well, I get fired and move on. But
more often I find the job is not so hard
after all."

This man made the long journey by river
steamer down the Nile. A deck passage
cost him one-fourteenth of the price of a
first-class ticket. In native territories he
found that ample food could be purchased
for a few pence a day. On his back he
carried a satchel with his eiderdown

sleeping-bag, change of clothing and
medical kit. "Every white man is regarded
as a doctor by the natives in some parts of
Africa," he said. "I was entertained
royally by many a village headman after I
had dispensed a few simple remedies."

Missionaries were hospitable, too. He
worked for his keep at a number of
stations, and then moved on as a
passenger in the mission motor-lorry.
Indian traders helped to transport him
from place to place. "Give me the lonely
roads where only one car passes every day
- then you are sure of a lift," he said. "On
the busy routes, every car ignores the
hitch-hiker."

A packet of salt is the best form of
currency in the Congo villages. He would
give the eager headman a little salt and
receive chickens and fruit in exchange.
When I met him he had travelled twenty-
three thousand miles since leaving
Canada. Having seen all Europe, Asia
Minor and Africa, he was bound for India.

There was no doubt in his mind that he
would complete his journey round the
world.

I knew an ingenious American, neither
penniless nor rich, who saw Africa free as
a result of a stroke of luck. He was on
board a Congo river steamer at a time
when navigation was liable to be delayed
by the papyrus grass. Huge islands of this
grass blocked the narrow waterway and
made progress impossible. The passengers
were informed that the ship could not
proceed for a fortnight. Someone
suggested elephant hunting as a means of
passing the time. My friend joined the
hunting party, brought down two
elephants, and sold the tusks to a Greek
trader for a sum that paid all his expenses
through the continent. "Though I don't
mind admitting that it took fifteen shots to
drop the first elephant," he told me.

A honeymoon couple motored through
Africa between the wars at a total cost of
thirty shillings a week. They carried

nothing more deadly than an old kitchen
knife. The tiny car became a double bed at
night, and nothing ever attacked them.
The young husband lectured at dozens of
schools throughout the journey to cover
expenses.

A party of German minstrels spent more
than two years on the road in Africa,
lecturing, playing and singing for their
meals and petrol. Their motor-truck
covered fifty thousand miles and took
them from Cape Town as far north as the
Sudan, zig-zagging across Africa four
times.

Firearms mean trouble at every frontier,
so the tropical tramps seldom carry even
an automatic pistol. Many of them
emphasise the fact that they have had no
dangerous encounters with wild animals.
But there have been tragedies. Darling, a
traveller on foot, was mauled by a leopard
in Portuguese East Africa and one of his
companions was killed. James Scott, a
roving Scot who finished his walk from

London to Cape Town in 1937, told me
that he had been "treed" by lions twice,
but never touched. He suffered great pain
from a scorpion bite, however, and he was
worried by rats while he slept.

Scott was a genuine walker, striding along
with the fifty-pound pack that all the
experienced men carry, often living on
dates and water. At other times he found
that tea, sugar, and beef suet were the best
foods. His was a remarkable achievement
for a man of fifty. He wore out twenty-
two pairs of boots during the journey of
fifteen thousand miles. In Nairobi he met
Grogan and compared notes. I asked him
whether he ever felt lonely during the
long march. "Lonely? Only in
civilisation," Scott replied. "There's too
much to see in the desert and the jungle to
be lonely."

The cyclists, of course, are able to cover
the ground at a much greater pace, and
carry more gear. Douglas Carr, a
Canadian, rode down Africa in seven

months, sometimes pedalling seventy
miles a day.

The fat books I have mentioned as part of
every penniless traveller's kit are carried
to show that the owner is indeed a
member of a race apart and no ordinary
hobo. These books, signed and stamped
by mayors, postmasters and police, prove
that the traveller is following a definite
route. If he is walking round the world to
win an enormous wager, here is the
evidence. The book, I imagine, leads to
many a welcome offer of hospitality, a
meal and a bed for a tale of adventure, fair
exchange indeed.

A Scottish traveller, of course, will seek
brother Scots wherever he goes; the
Germans will be hailed by fellow-
countrymen; Greek wanderer will find
Greek trader, even in the Congo forests.
(A one-legged Greek limped right through
Africa on a crutch some time ago.) Failing
private accommodation, there is usually a
spare bed in the police station for a decent

traveller on foot. But in tropical Africa
every white man passing through an
outpost is treated as a guest. There is
seldom any danger of going hungry and
without shelter. The prospect of a new
face at the table is welcomed.

Many of these travellers carry postcard-
portraits of themselves, which they sell.
They all tell you they are collecting
material for books, but few seem to
achieve publication. It must be heart-
breaking for these amateur writers to
discover that there is no market for the
stories of the hardships that were so real
to them. Or perhaps they never write their
books, after all. Perhaps they are still
wandering in distant countries, heading
for the horizon on journeys that never end.
I have still to meet one such traveller who
is ready to declare that the long tramp has
ended. He is always moving on to a new
land.

Some men make religious pilgrimages
through Africa. "I come with a message

from your best and oldest friend," says
this traveller as the door opens. He then
sells an illustrated edition of the Bible and
passes on. I remember one expedition
which travelled in a caravan painted to
resemble an armoured car. The members
called themselves an "international peace
mission". They charged a small fee for
inspection of the caravan, sold pamphlets,
and saw a fair stretch of Africa at the
expense of the inhabitants.

One lucky man was engaged in Cape
Town by a wealthy American who wanted
to drive to Nairobi. On arrival there the
American presented the car to the driver
and paid his expenses back to Cape Town.
Such chances of seeing Africa for nothing
seldom occur.

There was a period after World War II
when even the boldest wanderer refrained
from setting out into Africa with empty
pockets. But it started again, and the post-
war travellers I encountered were no less
enterprising than the old hands I had

known. A man who impressed me was a
twenty -eight-year-old Scot, R. Macduff
Urquhart, B.A., LL.B., graduate of Oxford
and Edinburgh Universities, who had been
a major in the Seaforths during the war.
Urquhart assured me that he was not
merely fond of travel; he had an
unquenchable thirst for it. He had crossed
Canada wearing a kilt from the Atlantic to
the Pacific on five pounds. (Canadian
Scots looked after him.) He knew the Far
East and Western Europe. And in 1951,
when the winds of Edinburgh grew cold,
he left home with a rucksack, one blanket,
a little money, and the addresses of three
friends in Africa.

Urquhart had landed at Casablanca and
then travelled fourth class by sea to
French West Africa. "Pretty rough -
usually reserved for native troops," he
recalled. "But I spread my blanket on
deck, slept happily under the stars, and
enjoyed a free bottle of wine at every
meal. The bread was good, too, and

sometimes when I went to the galley for
my rations the chef gave me a small
patisserie he had made for the first-class
passengers."

At times Urquhart had to pay his way by
'bus and river steamer. He hitch-hiked
through the Congo forests successfully
and reached Nairobi. There one of his
friends persuaded him to become a
schoolmaster. He had never given a lesson
in his life, but the regular master was ill
and so he accepted the post for six weeks.
"It was a desperate struggle, but it filled
my purse," Urquhart declared.

This resourceful traveller sailed to
Zanzibar by dhow, spent eighteen pounds
on a flight to Nyasaland, and thumbed his
way onwards to Cape Town. He had seen
Africa almost from end to end at a
fraction of the price most tourists pay.
"On the journey like mine you must be
prepared to go anywhere, sleep in any
place and eat practically anything,"
summed up Urquhart.

Such is the spirit that conquers distance in
Africa, and I admire the determination of
this restless legion. They add nothing to
maps or science; but they have no regrets
for the way they have chosen, and they do
bring the breath of adventure to many a
door in the far places.

Natives are naturally the greatest of all
Africa's penniless wanderers. In the
"Copper Belt" of Northern Rhodesia I met
a Nigerian native trader who had walked
there from the walled city of Kano, a
distance of more than two thousand miles,
with his merchandise. He had come by
those narrow trails which form a network
over Africa; footpaths leading from
village to village, stamped out by bare feet
many centuries ago and followed ever
since. You can cross the continent from
Loanda to Dar-es-Salaam keeping always
to these tracks, sure that you are taking
the easiest possible route. But there is no
room for a motor-car on these unmapped
tracks of Africa.

The main routes of today, where railways
stretch up to the highlands from the sea,
are the slave and ivory caravan roads of
yesterday. Such a one is the Arab highway
leading north-west from Mombasa to the
Congo and beyond. The present Lobito
Bay railway tracks are laid over the bones
of thousands of slaves. And farther north,
still bearing an old-fashioned cavalcade, is
the Lake Chad trail that begins on the
West Coast and ends on the shores of the
Red Sea.

On the narrow paths bicycles are seen,
with here and there a swaying camel. But
in the land of the tsetse fly, where pack
animals cannot live, the foot safari
remains the greatest cavalcade of all and
the native porter with his head load is still
the most reliable carrier.

Such journeys may be made in greater
luxury than the newcomer to Africa might
imagine. You can have drinks off the ice,
hot baths, a seven-course dinner and a
comfortable bed under a mosquito net.

The equipment is split up into regulation
fifty lb. head loads, and it is merely a
matter of taking a sufficient number of
porters. Years ago the load was seventy-
five lbs., and the porter cheerfully carried
the additional weight of a rifle and
ammunition, presents for his wife, food
and water-bottle, brass wire and beads for
use as money. The kilangozi (head porter)
set an example by choosing the largest
tusk, and the whole safari swung down the
trail to the songs he started.

"Tsokoli-i-i-tsokoli
"Yo-o-oo."

Are we downhearted? No. That is about
the best translation.

The Swahili porter has helped to make
history in Africa, and no great enterprise
in the tropics has been completed without
his aid. He carried the first steamers in
sections to the Great Lakes, and guided all
the explorers to the unknown hinterland.

On the pay-sheets, porters appear under
such names as Kiboko (hippo), Risasi
(cartridge) or Piga Mzinga (fire the
cannon), simply as a matter of
convenience. They are the strong men of
Africa. It is by no means rare to see the
head porter dance along for a mile at the
end of the day to encourage his tired
companions. Shoulder loads are moved in
unison at the end of a song, a juggling
feat; all along the line heads jerk aside,
the load shifts over with a thump.

For four centuries the machila has been
the white man's mode of travel along
certain bush paths. Of course there are
many white travellers and hunters who
would scorn to use this queer contraption;
they prefer to stride ahead of the safari
with the gun-bearer close at hand. But
when there are women in the party, or
when a man falls ill, the machila will be
there. In its simplest form, the machila is
a canvas hammock slung on a bamboo
pole and carried in turns by a team of ten

or a dozen men. The most muscular
fellows are chosen. They move out of step
(or the motion would be intolerable) at a
leisurely jog-trot. At the best of times it is
a nerve-racking method of transport, often
causing nausea.

Many attempts have been made to
improve the machila, and there is now a
type with one wheel, which reduces the
discomfort. I have seen ornate machilas
with leopard skin awnings, polished,
brass-studded poles, and teams in
uniform. But I have never seen one that
tempted me. Even in the sweltering
tropics it is better to walk.

The planning of a safari, of course, calls
for experience. One young man left the
purchase of food to his wife. Her mind
was staggered by the quantities required
for a trek of several months, so she made
certain economies. They were almost
starving when at last they reached a
trader' s store.

Pilfering is a prospect that cannot be
ignored. One traveller, nearly a thousand
miles from the coast and a long way from
any source of supply, opened the box
supposed to contain whisky. There were
stones inside, carefully chosen to make up
the correct weight. The remarks of
another man who found curry powder in
tins which should have held sugar are also
unprintable.

Nevertheless, the safari is the finest way
of all for those who seek contact with Old
Africa. And no aero engine ever sang with
such romantic rhythm as a winding, ebony
cavalcade of porters tramping out into
"the blue".

Chapter 8
No Greater Disaster

Ours is the meekness that endures; Our
patience, like a steadfast tree, Stands in
the torrent-pain that pours And sweeps all
else to some dark sea. The patient bovine
race unblest

Is earth 's sad, dumb, pathetic guest.

- W. C. Scully. "The Prayer of the
Cattle Smitten with Rinderpest."

No GREATER disaster than the rinderpest
ever smote Africa's animals. Even in
native legend this plague stands alone. It

crept down the continent like an evil
shadow over the land, killing the game
and cattle in its path by the million.

Among my earliest memories is a scene
on the veld outside Kimberley, where I
was born. Someone traced for me the
tragedy of the oxen, still visible in the
white bones of a whole team that must
have been hauling a wagon; a team that
lay down together and died, their bones
picked clean by the vultures.

Long afterwards I was on a farm in the
Prieska district, and I praised the fencing.
The farmer smiled. "That was part of the
rinderpest fence," he recalled. "The
government put up a barbed wire fence -
rushed it up I should say - for a thousand
miles along the border of the colony south
of the Orange River to keep the rinderpest
out. It must have cost them a hundred
pounds a mile. Daar waai geen wind nie
ofdit is iemand van nut. "

The ill wind of rinderpest, however, did
not enrich many people. If you made a list
of the most serious causes of suffering in
South Africa, the wars would come first,
then the human plagues, with the
rinderpest third. I have heard it argued
that we are still feeling the sinister
influence of the rinderpest because many
white families have never recovered from
the poverty which the rinderpest created.
People suited to life on the land were
forced into the towns; always an
undesirable movement. And it is possible
that South Africa would have more and
better and cheaper meat today if the
cattle-farmers had not lost their stock on a
colossal scale sixty years ago. Rinderpest
must have cost South Africa millions of
pounds, the good old golden pounds.

What was this nightmare? Rinderpest is a
German word meaning "cattle plague";
and the cattle-owning Huns brought the
disease with them from the depths of Asia
when they reached the present Germany

during the Dark Ages. Rinderpest is a
violent eruptive fever, highly contagious
and fatal. Essentially a cattle disease, it
also affects the ruminants among the
game animals; and domestic animals such
as sheep, goats and pigs may fall under
the curse.

Rinderpest wiped out much of the German
cattle a thousand years ago. It swept
England in the early eighteenth century,
and appeared in Africa for the first time
over a hundred years ago. In the eighteen-
nineties rinderpest started its deadly
journey southwards. By that time millions
of head of cattle had perished in Europe.

Egypt endured and survived the
rinderpest, like all the other plagues. The
infection which reached South Africa
appears to have been brought to
Massowah by Italian troops, and the Arab
caravans spread it down the Nile.

Lord Lugard, the great African
administrator, was a young army captain

in the Masai country when the rinderpest
arrived in 1890, and he declared: "Never
before in the memory of man or the voice
of tradition have cattle died in such vast
numbers. Never before have the wild
game suffered so. Nearly all the buffalo
and eland are gone. The giraffe has
suffered, also many of the small animals,
bush buck and reed buck. The pig (wart-
hog) seem nearly all to have died."

Here indeed was a killer more deadly than
the white hunter with his rifle. Up to the
time of the rinderpest the plains of East
Africa were alive and black with the
teeming herds of game. After the
rinderpest the picture changed. There are
still magnificent spectacles here and there,
but the game you watch today is but a
fraction of the life of the old African
scene.

Elephants, hippo and rhino escaped
completely. So did the lions and other
meat-eaters. But the havoc among the
ruminants was enormous, with the great

buffalo in the lead. The disease
transformed the buffalo from peace-loving
creatures into raging monsters, as the
terrified natives found to their cost.
Rinderpest still breaks out at intervals in
Tanganyika, and many unprovoked
attacks by buffalo have been recorded. A
buffalo infected with rinderpest will
charge a motor-lorry or a railway train.

All the horned buck went down before the
rinderpest; eland and kudu, bush buck and
reed buck and duiker. For some reason
which seemed to be connected with the
digestive system, the sable and roan
antelope, wildebeest and impala, were not
among the heaviest casualties. Horses
were immune, and it was hoped that the
zebras would escape. This was falsified
when Sir Alfred Sharpe found hundreds of
dead zebra near Lake Tanganyika.

Veterinarians were surprised to find such
large numbers of wart-hogs and bush pigs
among the victims. No doubt they fed on
the abundant carrion and paid the price.

Wart-hogs breed like rats, however, and
they soon recovered. The mortality among
the giant hogs of the East African
mountain forests was more regrettable.
These largest members of the pig tribe are
rare (or at any rate hard to find) and the
first living specimens only reached
London twenty years ago.

One possible result of the rinderpest may
have been the extinction of that famous
mystery animal, the so-called "Nandi
bear". This brute has become as
controversial as the Abominable
Snowman. Hunters and naturalists who
know East Africa intimately accept the
native legend of a dark brown, shambling
creature which hides in the trees and
scalps passers-by. Stories of the "Nandi
bear" are widespread and persistent; but
as no specimen has been secured it is
thought that the whole species has
perished.

Slowly the rinderpest moved towards the
south, with many freakish twists and

turns. Panic-stricken buffalo carried it in
some directions at the pace of their
stampedes. They do so still in the
smouldering reservoir of infection in East
Africa. During the first attack, back in the
eighteen-nineties, the left side of Lake
Nyasa was devastated while all the
country between the eastern side and the
sea remained unscathed. Rinderpest was
often checked and diverted by mountains.
Lucky pockets of land were left
untouched while in other areas the
stunned natives lost nine out of every ten
head of cattle. Rinderpest never entered
the Barotse valley, yet the ruthless
scourge reached out across Northern
Rhodesia and withered the herds and the
game of Angola.

Optimists in newly-settled Rhodesia
thought the Zambesi would act as a
barrier, but the river might never have
been there. South of the river, early in
1896, the rinderpest travelled at the exact
pace of the ox-wagons. The affected

districts never looked the same again, for
the buffalo, the eland and the kudu had
been thinned out so that the bush seemed
empty.

Only when the disease reached Bulawayo
was it diagnosed by the veterinarian Gray
as rinderpest. The natural instinct of every
transport driver was to hurry away from
the menace; but oxen cannot be hurried,
and the refugees only spread the disease.
In a matter of days the rinderpest was in
Palapye. Mafeking, five hundred miles
south of Bulawayo, was smitten early in
April. Rinderpest leapt the Limpopo as
easily as the Zambesi, and then the
Transvaal knew the horror of it.

My good friend Mr. Albert Jackson of
Port Elizabeth was trekking down from
the Kalahari by wagon to the North West
Cape in 1 896 when he was stopped by the
authorities at Upington. Owing to the
rinderpest, no cattle were allowed to cross
the Orange River. "The whole river was
guarded by Cape police patrols, and I

remember them dipping my boots in
disinfectant," Mr. Jackson recalled.

Mr. Jackson described the border fence
which I mentioned earlier. He was
responsible for putting up forty miles of
this fence, with a heavy fine if he fell
behind time. "I finished my section in a
month, but only by giving forty farmers
one mile each," Mr. Jackson explained.
"The government supplied the wire, and
we were allowed to cut down trees along
the river for poles. My particular area was
so stony that I had to use fifty cases of
dynamite for blasting the holes.
Unfortunately the fence was a sheer waste
of money. Hawks and other birds of prey
feasted on the thousands of rinderpest
victims and carried the disease into the
Cape Colony."

I think the saddest tale of the rinderpest I
ever heard was of a young farmer who
became a transport driver on the route
from Durban to the Transvaal. Before his
first trip he married a Durban girl, and

they set out together in high spirits. All
his oxen died of rinderpest on a lonely
stretch. The husband tried to buy a team
in the neighbourhood, but failed. He then
decided to ride on horseback to his
father's farm to borrow oxen. It was an
awkward predicament, for his wife was a
town-bred girl, and he disliked the idea of
leaving her alone. However, there was
nothing else to be done, and he rode away.

An hour later the husband returned. He
had dismounted to drink at a stream, and a
snake had bitten him. There was no hope.
In his distress he had made for the wagon,
and he died in his wife's arms. She was
found soon afterwards with her dead
husband's head in her lap, dazed by the
tragedy. The men who stopped at the
wagon buried the husband and took the
widow back to Durban.

All along the transport routes of Southern
Africa lay the abandoned wagons. A man
who travelled from Mafeking to
Bulawayo in 1896 told me that he saw

wagons with loads untouched, others
pilfered by natives. It was a scene of
confusion. At every trading station the
stores had piled up, surrounded by
wagons that had reached those points and
could go no farther. Not only was there
the rinderpest as a cause of deep anxiety,
but the Matabele were expected to rise at
any moment. That was the situation which
Baden- Powell had to deal with in the
Matabele campaign.

Mafeking was crowded with troops, but
the rinderpest had stopped all operations.
The revolt was caused by the order that
native cattle were to be killed to prevent
the disease spreading. Natives who had
not been aggressive were now inclined to
join the rebels. Thanks to the rinderpest, it
took an army of five thousand white men
eight months to subdue the Matabele.

By now the fear of rinderpest had gripped
the whole of Southern Africa, the
Portuguese in the east and west, the
Germans in Damaraland. No territory

escaped. Dead cattle lay reeking from sea
to sea.

Veterinary experts and officials from the
British colonies and the republics met at
Vryburg in April 1896 to work out a
policy which might save something from
the wreck of South Africa's cattle
industry. Among those who attended the
conference was a young and unknown
Swiss veterinarian named Theiler, later
Sir Arnold Theiler. At the end of his
brilliant career, this scientist who founded
Onderstepoort declared that the rinderpest
gave him more worry than any other
problem he had encountered in his
profession. In the Transvaal there were
not enough police and hardly any
scientists. Theiler did not make his name
at this period. He was inexperienced, his
salary was £500 a year, and when he went
to Bulawayo and Vryburg he was
handicapped by a poor knowledge of
English. But the rinderpest taught Theiler
how to wage a great campaign. For twenty

months he drafted regulations, carried out
research, organised meetings, wrote
reports. Always he had President Kruger
behind him. The drastic measures
included a complete ban on the entry of
cattle into the Transvaal from infected
areas, and all transport by oxen had to be
stopped.

Transvaal farmers had to keep their cattle
at least three miles from the border. All
stock suspected of rinderpest contagion
had to be impounded, and much of it was
destroyed. Fodder which might have
conveyed rinderpest was buried or burnt.
Dogs and pigs were destroyed wherever
the rinderpest appeared. Meat wagons had
to be drawn by horses or mules. Milk
vanished from the shops. Game laws
protecting buffalo, eland, giraffe,
wildebeest, kudu and many other buck
were suspended, and there was hunting on
a great and tragic scale. After the
shooting, and the rinderpest, the wild life
of the Transvaal became a thing of the

past. Only in the game reserve which
President Kruger established in the Sabi
did the animals slowly recover from the
slaughter and the sickness of the
rinderpest.

At intervals President Kruger proclaimed
a Day of Prayer. Despairing farmers
dosed their cattle with raw linseed oil, and
washed out the mouths of their animals
with paraffin oil and salt. Tar was applied
round the nostrils in the hope that it would
act as an antiseptic. Yet the plague spread
like a raging fire. A great celebration had
been planned at Paardekraal on Dingaan's
Day in 1896, and the Volksraad had voted
£33,000 for the occasion. It was
cancelled.

So great was the ruin that hundreds of
farmers were unable to remain on the
land. They converged on Johannesburg
with their families seeking work.
President Kruger laid out a new suburb
for these "displaced persons", first known
as Burgersdorp, now Vrededorp.

Irrigation settlements and relief works had
to be started to prevent starvation.

So many animals were destroyed that
burial became a problem, and on many
farms there was a labour shortage because
the natives were digging graves.
Wherever possible the doomed cattle were
driven into dongas and shot; it was easier
to fill in than to dig. But the work had to
be done thoroughly or the jackals and
other vermin pulled out the carcasses.
Scully the poet and author, who was
magistrate at Nqamakwe near Butterworth
at the time, reported that over two-thirds
of his district the dead cattle lay thick, and
it was difficult to avoid the sight or the
stench. Queen Victoria's jubilee could not
be celebrated owing to the emergency.
The natives were inclined to blame the
government for their sufferings, and the
territories from the Kei to Natal might
easily have been plunged into war. It was
rumoured among the natives that the
government had brought this disease to

ruin them so that they would be forced to
work in the gold mines. Scully worked so
hard that his health was wrecked for a
time, and at the end of the rinderpest
campaign he had to go overseas to seek a
cure for his insomnia. Many other
conscientious officials drove themselves
to breaking point.

The various governments compensated
farmers when their cattle were shot to
prevent the rinderpest spreading.
Travellers coming south were examined at
Norvalspont, and pet dogs were taken
from them and shot. The newspapers
recorded the trick played by a woman
who asked the officials to allow her to
wrap her dog in a cloak so that she could
not see the killing. The officials agreed,
and the woman took her dog into a
waiting-room to say farewell. She
emerged weeping with a bundle, the shots
were fired and the bundle was buried. But
when her train reached Cape Town she
had recovered completely, for she had

hidden the dog successfully and the
bundle was a fake.

It was the Cape Government that urged
Dr. Robert Koch, the greatest
bacteriologist of his day, to come to South
Africa and investigate the rinderpest.
Koch was asked to name his own terms.
Shortly before the end of 1896 Koch was
at work in the burning summer heat of
Kimberley, cutting up carcasses in one of
the compounds. He tested all the local
remedies, inoculated hundreds of animals,
and finally confirmed something that
many cattle farmers had already found out
for themselves. "I consider it absolutely
proved that by the injection of gall taken
from rinderpest-infected animals, a sound
animal may be protected against the
disease, and that this discovery is also
capable of practical application," Koch
reported.

Before the end of 1898 two million head
of cattle had been inoculated and the
disease was under control. The last cases

in the Cape were reported in 1903.
Rinderpest has never reappeared, though
as I have said, the disease still smoulders
in tropical East Africa. All attempts to
eliminate this reservoir have failed.
However, Koch's method has been
replaced by less dangerous and more
effective injections of serum. All the
territories menaced by rinderpest work in
close cooperation. But even now the
veterinary experts do not rule out the
possibility of a major catastrophe in the
Rhodesia' s and the Union if the rinderpest
breaks the cordon and moves south.

Today the railway line between Dar-es-
Salaam and Lake Tanganyika is regarded
as the southern limit beyond which the
disease must be tackled vigorously
wherever it appears. There has been no
serious threat since 1939, when the
rinderpest was driven back for three
hundred miles north of the railway. A belt
of immunized cattle is also maintained
across Tanganyika. Game fences and

trenches are additional precautions. The
watch that is kept is so efficient that all
the governments to the south will have
timely warning if the rinderpest jumps the
barrier.

What did the rinderpest of 1896-98 cost
South Africa as a whole, the republics and
the British colonies and protectorates? I
said millions of sovereigns, and one
estimate put it as high as £20,000,000.
More than two and a half million head of
cattle perished, according to Dr. M. W.
Henning's estimate in his standard work
on animal diseases. In the Cape Colony,
the percentage of loss was thirty-five.
Donkeys replaced oxen and saved the day
- but at fancy prices. And if ever the
rinderpest comes again you will not find
the farmers selling their donkeys for
slaughter at thirty shillings per hundred
pounds dressed weight.

The good that came out of the rinderpest
was the founding of Onderstepoort, the
institute which is now world famous for

veterinary research. There the young
Swiss genius named Theiler, who fought
the rinderpest in vain, made his great
discoveries and taught his pupils. If the
rinderpest does come again,
Onderstepoort will deal with it.

Chapter 9

Return To Kimberley

I AM in Kimberley again, the town where
I was born, on the brink of scenes as rich
and strange in their own way as anything
in the world. If you can approach great
wealth without envy, I will show you
diamonds worth millions.

Kimberley can never hide its past, and
here is the "Big Hole" again. My head for
heights has not improved since I was a
child; indeed, I am so acutely uncomfort-

able on the edge of this steep, gaping scar
that I have to remind myself that Nelson
was always seasick and that Napoleon
dreaded cats. They say the fear of heights
is due to the eye travelling downwards
and measuring the drop, a giddy process. I
have flown over this same "Big Hole"
without the slightest feeling of nausea; but
then the aircraft had become my world,
there was nothing connecting me with the
earth, and the impression conveyed to the
brain was space, not height.

My fear of heights must have had its
origin in that gigantic "Big Hole", for
there were no other heights in Kimberley
as far as I was concerned. Perhaps there
are still a few people, over ninety they
must be, who can remember when there
was no hole at all. This was just a pock-
marked area in the early seventies of last
century, when the first diggers were
working their claims. No one imagined
that Cecil Rhodes would secure enough
diamonds from this funnel to pay for the

The 'Big Hole' is a stupendous example of human enterprise when there is a glittering prixe in sight.
From the observation post on the northern edge you see the rough circle, fifteen hundred feet in

diameter.

occupation of Rhodesia. I stood there
once with a later diamond magnate who
had known it as a shallow pit in the midst
of a town of canvas and tin. "Sometimes
there would be a burst of cheering from
the diggers," he told me. "That usually
meant a find. There was no jealousy, for
one digger's luck encouraged hundreds of
others. Few women came to the diamond
fields in those days, so every hat came off
and the loudest cheers of all were heard
when a white woman appeared on the rim
of the crater."

It was "New Rush" in those days, but as
the series of pits went deeper they became
the Kimberley Mine. Diamondiferous
"blue ground" was hauled to the surface
in buckets. Thousands of ropes were used,
and in the moonlight the huge crater
resembled it monstrous spider's web.
Landslides and rock falls hampered the
work, but in course of time the area of the
"Big Hole" at the surface was thirty-eight
acres. Before the mine closed down in

1909, it had yielded diamonds worth
£100,000,000. A shaft had then reached a
working level of 3601 feet, which made it
the deepest diamond mine in the world.
Many thousands of people regard the "Big
Hole" as the largest man-made excavation
on earth, but this is a fallacy. I believe the
Bingham Canyon copper mine near Salt
Lake City, Utah, is a much larger open
working.

Nevertheless, the "Big Hole" is a
stupendous example of human enterprise
when there is a glittering prize in sight.
From the observation post on the northern
edge you see the rough circle, fifteen
hundred feet in diameter. It is very like a
vast funnel, sloping down for nearly three
hundred feet to the dizzy pathway (where
you will never find me) round the rocky
vertical pipe.

Such a dramatic scene has a sinister
influence on some people. The "Big
Hole" has known accidental deaths,
suicides and rescues. All through the

years the bodies have been found; one
man, with his jacket on inside out,
appeared to have been murdered; another
victim of the mine was a soldier in
uniform. There was a queer rescue
episode shortly after World War II, when
a white man, wearing only a pair of
shorts, was seen climbing the fence and
descending the treacherous slope towards
the vertical drop. A crowd soon gathered,
and people shouted warnings and begged
the man to return. But the man seemed
intent on suicide. At any moment he
might have gone rolling down the slope. It
looked as though he was certain to fall
into the pipe and drop to the water eight
hundred feet below.

A coloured school teacher, Mr. G. F.
Weber of Uitenhage, who had been
serving in the Cape Corps, decided to see
what he could do. Weber had never
climbed inside the "Big Hole" before, but
he went down bravely, taking great risks
in the effort to reach the man in time. The

man was within a few feet of the
terrifying pipe when Weber approached
him. Both of them were slipping on the
steep gravel, and it seemed that both the
would-be suicide and his rescuer would
plunge to death together. They met and
stopped on the very edge of eternity.
Weber spoke to the man for some time;
then the anxious crowd saw Weber
returning alone. He had come to the
surface for help, and a white man and a
native constable joined him and all three
went to the man in danger.

These three helped the man back. A short
cliff had to be scaled near the top, and a
dozen volunteers formed a human chain
and brought rescuers and rescued to
safety. There was a mysterious element in
the affair which puzzled all who were
present. How had Weber persuaded the
man to remain where he was instead of
committing suicide? Weber claimed that
his success was due to hypnotism. He had
studied hypnotism for seven years, he

said; and when he found himself facing a
powerful man in that desperate
predicament he realised that only by using
hypnotism could he save the man's life.

Trees grow in the "Big Hole" today,
masses of shale have fallen in, and the
steep walls have become a bird sanctuary.
I shudder when I think of it. A gloomy
place. If it is not haunted it should be;
haunted by the ghosts of '71 and after,
adventurous spirits who hurried from the
far corners of the world, toiled feverishly
for a time and scattered again, some rich
and some broken.

In my youth, and long afterwards, the
diamond-bearing "blue ground" brought
up from the Kimberley mines was spread
out on "floors" for a year so that the
weather might break up the rock. When I
returned to Kimberley between the wars,
however, I found a new system at work.
The "blue ground" came to the surface
and was tipped and fed slowly on to long
conveyor belts. Lines of intelligent natives

were picking by hand, leaving the rough
"blue ground" with its glittering mica
particles and taking off the smooth and
useless rock. Hand picking is one of the
most popular jobs on the mines. There is a
reward for every diamond found by a De
Beers employee; and although diamonds
are seldom found until the final
concentration, the chance is always
present. A native convict labourer once
handed in a stone of 268 carats.

Convicts are no longer employed on the
Kimberley diamond mines. In the old
days I was always amused to see
incorrigible thieves in red-striped jerseys
working so close to wealth in a form
which might be regarded as exquisitely
transportable. Even in the pulsator-house,
where the diamonds come to light at last,
the convicts were moving about happily
amid the machinery. The convicts valued
their tobacco rations far more highly than
the diamonds under their noses. You
could smoke the tobacco, but a diamond

was absolutely useless when there was no
chance of smuggling it out.

I found it reassuring to note that the
pulsator, most spectacular of the diamond
recovery processes, had remained
unchanged since my childhood. This is
simply a table covered with grease and
shaken steadily as the gravel washes over
it with a stream of water. Diamonds are
caught in the grease while the worthless
gravel passes on. No one has ever really
understood why the device makes this
selection; not even the De Beers employee
who invented it many years ago. But it
works. Every two hours the tables are
scraped clear of grease. The whole thick
mess is placed in perforated cylinders and
boiled. The grease floats out and the
diamonds are left in the locked cylinders.
A concentration of fourteen millions to
one is complete. That is the ratio. It takes
about seventy thousand tons of "blue
ground" to produce diamonds weighing
ten pounds.

When I was last in Kimberley they were
using dogs to guard the "blue ground"
lying out in the open and still containing a
fortune in diamonds. Barbed wire
entanglements enclosed this private
treasure-house about a square mile in
area. Fifty men patrolled the "blue
ground" area in the old days, when the
whole output of De Beers had to be
exposed to the weather. The guard had
been reduced to four men and packs of
Alsatians and bullmastiffs.

All the most important places on the
mines had their dog sentries at night; the
pulsator house and the Kimberley offices.
At each spot a dog was chained to a picket
line about a hundred yards long. If this
dog heard any suspicious sound it barked,
and up came a "fighting dog", that had
been roaming the area free. Sometimes
the dogs found a raider wearing knee and
elbow pads, crawling over the ground in
search of diamonds. If the man tried to
escape the dog would hang on to his arm,

but it would never fly at his throat. These
dogs were so well-trained that they would
jump over burning fences, climb walls
twelve feet high and obey whistles and
other signals. Such was the routine that
saved the mines many salaries and made
the diamond "floors" in the open almost
as secure as a bank safe.

When you drive northwards from
Kimberley, all the way to Christiana, you
see the river diggings. On the red veld
beside the Vaal River stand the hovels of
the diggers and the heaps of gravel, the
sieves and the washing-machines. Here
are true gamblers, men who expose them-
selves and their families to a life of
hardship in the hope of sudden wealth.
Some of them have sold farms to live in
filth.

Yet I would be a hypocrite if I denied
feeling the temptation of the river
diggings myself. They put a scraper in my
hand, and brought the gravel from the
washer, and showed me how to sweep

away the mass of garnets and moonstones,
cats-eyes, carbon, agates and olivine and
crystalloids. I went on flicking at the
rubbish on the sorting-table until I found a
glittering stone at last. In that moment I
saw with startling clarity the whole charm
of a life that does not even provide three
meals a day for most of those who follow
it. I wanted to take a partner who knew
the game, buy the outfit and sort my own
wash.

Failure seemed out of the question. That
flick of the wrist would turn up a stone
large enough to make me rich. After all, it
has happened again and again. That is the
curse of the river diggings - it can
happen. Only when you think of the
thousands who have lost everything does
common sense prevail. The old river
diggings are almost finished. It is a
lamentable end to a romantic industry.

For the capitalist, however, the Vaal River
still offers an even more exciting gamble
than ever the small digger knew. I drove

out from Kimberley one day with Bernard
Goldberg, the "diamond breakwater king"
to see the greatest breakwater ever flung
across the river. Goldberg has now been at
this game for half a century. It was in
September 1936 that Goldberg took me to
the pool below Webster's Koppie. Years
ago Captain Webster discovered that the
koppie was studded with diamonds.
Hordes of diggers ransacked that hill,
leaving it looking dishevelled and
obviously holding nothing for posterity.
But the pool called Webster's Pool is a
deep hole in the river bed, a treasure-chest
guarded by water. When I arrived there,
the pool was almost dry. Goldberg had
spent twenty thousand pounds diverting
the course of the river and draining the
fabulous pool.

It had not been emptied without an effort.
The breakwater was five hundred feet in
length, and a side channel nearly a mile
long had been blasted out of the rock. It
had taken sixteen thousand shots of

dynamite to blast that channel. The
pressure on the wall was tremendous. If it
had caved in, all the machinery would
have been lost and the men would have
been lucky if they had climbed out of the
river bed before the water poured in on
them. "It lends a spice to the game,"
Goldberg told me cheerfully.

Swishing and grinding, twenty washing
machines were sounding their merry song
of diamonds. Boulders were being drilled,
dynamited and torn out of the mud by
cranes to open up "pockets" of diamonds.
Natives were working knee-deep, waist-
deep, shovelling away the over-burden,
tracing the seam of rich gravel, loading
the heavy iron buckets that went swinging
up to the washing machines.

And there was I at the sorting table
listening to the old hands at the game.
"See these water-worn stones with hoops
like a beer barrel round them - 'bandoms'
we call them," said a digger. "Well, when
you get 'bandoms' you get diamonds, and

when you get 'bandoms' that size you
expect something good."

In fact, Goldberg and his partners did find
something good in Webster's Pool. In
spite of the outlay of twenty thousand
pounds, they showed a handsome profit.
Years later, in 1948, they rebuilt the
breakwater there; and again they took out
diamonds worth thousands more than
their investment before the rains came and
swept the breakwater away. Goldberg is a
magnificent gambler. He is also a licensed
diamond buyer, and once he paid thirteen
thousand pounds for a single stone.

I talked to another diamond buyer, the
oldest of them all shortly before World
War II. He was the late Mr. Maurice
Aronson, who had held his license
continuously since the 'eighties of last
century. Once the street outside his
Kimberley office was crowded with
horses and carts and men dealing in shares
and diamonds. Now the street is almost
deserted, scores of diamond buyers have

given up the game and departed, while
those who remain carry hundreds instead
of thousands of pounds in their bags.

"I once paid out nine thousand pounds in
a day for river diamonds," recalled Mr.
Aronson. "And that was at a time when
diamonds were comparatively cheap. My
best deal was when I bought a stone and
sold it the same day at a profit of three
thousand pounds - a stone that another
buyer had turned down. There was a much
stronger element of chance then, for we
were out of touch with the overseas
market for weeks at a stretch. The cable
and telegraph came later. If profits
sometimes were large, there were times
when you had to hold on to your stock for
months to get the money back. Most of
the diggers, then and now, have an
excellent knowledge of the value of dia-
monds. But often a stone is speculative -
a large white spotted stone, for example. I
remember a stone found in the Hopetown
district. The colour was so wonderful that

one buyer doubted whether it could be a
diamond. I knew, paid fifteen hundred
pounds for it, and sold for three
thousand."

Mr. Aronson pondered for a moment over
the glories of a lost paradise. "Then there
was a woman working on the richest little
patch of ground in the world at that time,"
he went on. "She offered me a diamond
for seventy-five pounds. It was obviously
worth more, and when I gave her a
hundred pounds she was so grateful that
she wanted me to take her daughter as part
of the bargain!" He produced a little
pocket-book full of large figures, "I will
show you what the business is today,"
said he. "Here is a sum of six thousand
pounds - bad debts written off because
the diggers are dead or gone. Yet they are
honourable men, always ready to pay
when they have the money."

Diamond buyers were among the first
people in South Africa to use motor-cars.
Mr. Aronson had a De Dion in 1902.

Before that he took nearly a week to drive
round the diggings with a cart and four
horses, a revolver within easy reach, and a
bag containing twenty thousand pounds in
cash and diamonds.

Here is the final Kimberley scene, the
Central Sorting Office, a well-protected
stone building to which all the large
diamond producers of South Africa and
South West Africa send their "parcels".
Some years ago each company maintained
its own staff of sorters and valuators. The
Central Sorting Office has rationalised
this important section of the industry,
besides giving the sorters a wider
experience of different types of diamonds.

In this room are youths learning one of the
world's strangest occupations, and
middle-aged experts who can tell the
origin of a diamond at a glance, and what
it is worth. They sit over the shining
fortunes in a long row, men gripped by
the spell of the diamond, the glamour that

never grows stale. White paper covers the
work-table. Besides each sorter are the
simple tools of the diamond trade.

"There are the sieves, the only mechanical
things in the office," pointed out my
guide. "The diamonds come from a mine
in a jumble, and the sieve helps to size
them roughly. But after a few shakes the
whole process must be done by balance,
hand and eye."

We passed into an air-tight weighing
room to examine the scales. No draught
must be allowed to interfere with an
operation in which a weight of one-
quarter of a carat may mean a difference
of many pounds in the value of the
diamond. There are one hundred and forty
two and a half carats to the ounce. The
largest scale will weigh a stone of twelve
thousand carats, if such a stone is ever
found.

Diamonds are cleaned with hydrofluoric
acid. They need no other treatment until

they reach the hands of the cutter. But
what a shuffling and a series of
classifications they must undergo before
they are ready for shipment to London! I
looked over the shoulders of the sorters.
Each man had a pair of tweezers and a
scoop; and sometimes a man would reach
for the headgear of magnifying glasses to
decide a difficult problem.

"It is all done by eye, instinct and
experience - a human affair from start to
finish," went on my guide. "No machinery
will ever replace these men. No textbook
on the subject will ever be written. The
job can be learnt only on the spot, by
watching others, and I suppose this room
is the finest training ground in the world.
No other office handles such quantities
and varieties of diamonds."

He pointed to the youngest sorter. "We
have to catch them young - every man in
this room started learning the art at fifteen
or sixteen. A man of twenty-five is much
too old to begin. It is a matter of

temperament. You must handle diamonds
constantly for fifteen years before you can
call yourself an expert. Only then will you
be able to distinguish diamonds from
different mines and areas at sight.
Monotonous work? Never. We find
diamonds very interesting at all times. No
two diamonds are exactly alike, and there
is always something new cropping up to
maintain the endless fascination of
sorting. Opening a fresh day's output is
like opening a newspaper. You never
know what may be inside, and often the
contents are startling. Of course, the eyes
feel the strain, and so a working day of six
and a half hours is arranged. Weighing
and invoicing vary the routine and ease
the strain. In dull weather nothing can be
done - a dust storm or thunder storm stops
all sorting immediately. In London, in the
winter, sorting is a slow process. Here we
seldom fall behind our schedule. Our
windows, you observe, face south so that
no sunshine may fall on the diamonds and

dazzle the sorters. If the man opposite
painted his roof white we should have to
ask him to paint it again, a darker colour.
Daylight is essential; a great deal of
money has been spent on experiments
with artificial light, but no substitute for
daylight has been found satisfactory."

As I walked down the line of sorters I
learnt that diamonds are now graded in
much greater detail than ever before. A
mine's monthly output may be sorted into
a thousand or two thousand different lots
- a task ten times more complicated than
the old system of sorting. In one heap lay
the pick of the output, magnificent blue-
white diamonds of the finest shape and
purity. Then there were heaps of colours
and shades, almost imperceptible varia-
tions that affect prices enormously. I was
shown a large stone with black flaws so
pronounced as to render it almost
valueless as jewellery.

Diamonds are found in all the colours of
the rainbow, but red is the rarest.

Impurities in the crystal may give a
diamond a red tinge and increase the price
many times, an example of a fault being
worth more than perfection. Green
diamonds that cut green are valuable, too.
The whole art of sorting and valuing
diamonds lies in the power to visualise the
appearance of the stone after cutting.
Even the world's greatest experts are
liable to errors of judgment in this matter.

After sizes, shapes and colours come the
"cleavages", diamonds that have been
broken in the earth; and "maacles", or
twin stones. Among the stones that would
look hideous when set in a brooch or ring
are many that can be sold at high prices
for industrial purposes. Precision
machinery demands diamonds. New uses
for the industrial diamond are being
discovered every year. A stone that defies
cutting will command a large price in the
market where men buy diamonds for
drilling and the manufacture of engines.

I pointed to a heap of hundreds of
diamonds and tested the skill of the chief
valuator. "Show me the finest diamond
there, please." Instantly his hand went
forward and he selected a brown
octohedron. "There may be differences of
opinion in valuation, but every man will
agree that this stone is the best," he
declared. And then he gave a further
display of that mysterious sixth sense
possessed by diamond experts. He
glanced over a table of open tin boxes,
each containing diamonds, and told me
(without looking at the labels) the origin
of each assortment.

"These are diamonds from Alexander
Bay, the famous 'Aladdin's Cave' at the
mouth of the Orange River, the Govern-
ment treasure house that has yielded
millions," he began. "Blue white, brown,
yellow - all possess a typical brilliance;
though they are not, as some have said,
like cut diamonds. The absence of very
low qualities may be noted. The next box

is from South West Africa. I cannot tell
you why they differ from some of the
other assortments, but I know in my own
mind. Mines and diggings only a few
miles apart produce stones that are totally
different. Freaks do occur, and that is why
a diamond expert in a court of law has an
even harder task than a handwriting
expert. But if I cannot always convince a
judge and jury, I know in my own mind,
just as a farmer knows his own sheep.
Instinct cannot be explained, and we must
leave it at that."

These men do not need acids to test the
stones that pass before them, year after
year, in gorgeous array. The eye is the
sole test, and no strange mineral will ever
deceive them. When the sorting is over
the diamonds are folded into "diamond
papers", a description of qualities and
weights is written, and the little black
boxes are packed and sealed. They travel,
not by special messenger as you might
suppose, but by registered post.

Diamonds are imperishable, yet millions
are spent on them every year. Experts
have estimated that the world's stock does
not lose five per cent in a hundred years.
Somewhere in the dawn of time the Koh-
i-noor and the Sancy were born; and they,
and most of the famous diamonds of all
the centuries, are still giving out their fire.
Famous diamonds sometimes disappear,
but they are seldom lost to mankind. Their
careers are stories of murder and intrigue,
robberies and toppling thrones; romance
and drama. Long after their owners have
been forgotten these diamonds are
gathering legend and superstition with
their lustre and their charm undimmed.

Will the human race ever tire of the
glittering stones that have held the
imagination of Shahs and Moguls ever
since a cutting industry flourished in
Babylon and the Phoenicians sailed away
on their freebooting expeditions? I put the
problem to one of the foremost Kimberley
authorities on the diamond. "Every

woman wants a diamond, and when she
has one she wants more," he replied. "The
demand touches deep instincts. From the
earliest times the diamond has been
prized, and no gem has ever taken the
place of the diamond in the eyes of
women. Sometimes you hear that pearls
are coming into fashion at the expense of
the diamond; but as a matter of fact,
pearls and rubies, emeralds and sapphires,
must always rank after the fascination of
the wonderful diamond. About half the
weight of every good diamond, you must
remember, vanishes in the cutting. Many
smaller stones are used in cutting the large
ones, so that they disappear. Finally, there
is the control of the market by the
Diamond Syndicate which gives stability
right through the trade, from the miner
blasting "blue ground" at Kimberley to
the salesman in the jeweller's shop. The
world can never be sated with diamonds
while that system prevails."

Chapter 10

Strange Landings

WHEN MOTOR-CARS and aircraft became
streamlined and their engines reliable,
when the cat's-whisker and crystal
wireless set vanished, the charm went out
of all these wonders for me. I loved the
early days.

I told you about the first car I ever drove.
There was the romance of the road. I put
on the old wireless headphones at night,
and heard the ships talking in crisp dots
and dashes. That was the conquest of
space. And nearly forty years ago I flew
behind a rotary engine with fear and joy in
my heart.

In the early days most of the pilots I knew
were personalities. Nowadays (and
perhaps it is just as well) I do not seem to
meet the picturesque and eccentric type of
pilot who flourished long ago. Great air
lines do not encourage that sort of man.
Similarly, a lot of queer experience has
gone out of the air. You may still meet
with disaster, but the unexpected hazards
that aircraft faced before World War I,
during that war and for a period of years
afterwards, have gone with the biplanes,
the wooden propellers and the under-
carriages which remained firmly in place
until you made a really unhappy landing.

Flying in Southern Africa goes back
farther than some people think. Military
balloons were used during the occupation
of Bechuanaland more than seventy years
ago; and British balloon "aces" operated
on several fronts before the end of last
century in the South African War. Some
of those balloons carried wireless
transmitters. One of the sights of

Ladysmith during the siege was a balloon
tethered to an ox-wagon. It was shot down
by the Boers, but General White had
another balloon in reserve. Balloon
observers sketched the positions of the
enemy and spotted for the artillery. They
made photographic maps, too, many years
before the first air survey.

Before the South African War ended,
"pilots" wearing the uniform of the Royal
Engineers were going aloft in the perilous
heavier-than-air contraptions known as
man lifting kites. I said that I loved the
early days, but those kites were before my
time and I would not have stepped into
one unless a pistol had been held at my
head.

The first aeroplane I ever watched was a
thing of beauty, a graceful Bleriot
monoplane flown by a South African pilot
named Driver, carrying the first airmail
from Kenilworth racecourse to a landing
ground beside the Muizenberg vlei. (A
more ridiculous route it would have been

hard to imagine, but the special stamped
cards bearing a date in December 1911
are now valuable.) That little aircraft had
a top speed of fifty miles an hour. Before
the pilot ventured aloft it was customary
to light a candle, and if the wind blew out
the flame he packed up and waited for a
calmer day. A lot of my friends would
still be alive if only the aviation experts
had stuck to fifty miles an hour and
candles.

I have served in two air forces, and I
know the precautions which are taken to
avoid disaster. Yet in spite of all safety
rules and devices, the crashes linger in my
mind. I was lifted out of one myself.
Again and again I have been far too close
to the fatal results of human errors of
judgment.

Many air historians have recorded the
early flights in power aircraft by Weston
and Driver, Paterson and Kimmerling in
South Africa before World War I. These
were brave efforts, and I pass on only

because I like to leave the well-known
tracks and find the more obscure charac-
ters of the by-ways. You will not find the
name of Peter Falk in any book I have
read, but he was an air pioneer in German
South West Africa and he told me of other
early German pilots and their adventures.

I called on Peter Falk in Windhoek. He is
a short, chubby, benign man in the sixties,
and he gained his pilot's licence in March
1913 at a private flying school in
Hamburg. Then he joined the German
Army as a pilot, logging three hundred
hours on Rumplers during 1913, a
prodigious amount of flying in those
uncertain days. After this experience he
was placed on the reserve, and he settled
in German South West Africa before the
outbreak of World War I.

Falk was in South West when the first
aircraft arrived. It was a Pfalz biplane, and
it was landed and assembled at
Swakopmund in May 1914. Bruno
Buchner, the pilot, made the first flight on

May 15, and two days later he set off for
Windhuk (as they spelt it in German)
carrying postcard mail. Those postcards,
with five pfennig stamps, fetch high
prices today.

Buchner flew over the Namib desert
safely and landed first at Karibib. Natives
ran for their lives. Every stationmaster
reported progress as Buchner flew along
the railway line, a pioneer method of
navigation which is not scorned by some
pilots even now. Okahandja was his next
landing, and the long cross-country flight
looked like a triumph. On the last stage to
Windhoek, however, he encountered
headwinds. Twice in forty-five miles he
put the Pfalz down to tinker with the
engine, at Teufelsbach and Brackwater.

He reached Windhoek on May 26, landing
on the present racecourse. The first
agricultural show ever organised in the
colony had just been opened, and the
aeroplane was a sensational exhibit. It
cost five marks to enter the tent where

Buchner stood proudly beside the Pfalz
answering questions. In calm weather
Buchner took up passengers, one at a
time, charging twenty marks for three-
minute flips round the racecourse. Once
he made a forced landing in a river bed in
front of Peter Falk's house, but no harm
was done.

Buchner decided that flying conditions
were good, and announced that after
touring South West he would carry right
on southwards to Cape Town. But the
mountains surrounding Windhoek, the
highest in the country, looked frightening
from the cockpit of an underpowered
Pfalz. (Pilots of much later aircraft hated
the Windhoek aerodrome.) So he railed
the aeroplane to Rehoboth and flew on
again from there.

It was a most ambitious venture at that
period, and I do not think any pilot in
South Africa flew anything like as far
across country before World War I as
Buchner did over the South West African

plains. He touched down at
Keetmanshoop, and then turned
westwards and re-crossed the terrifying,
empty Namib. On June 25 all
Liideritzbucht came out to welcome him,
and he deserved it. By this time the war
clouds were blowing up, and the flight to
the Union was cancelled. Biichner' s
aeroplane was shipped to German East
Africa before war was declared.

Meanwhile two more private aircraft, an
Aviatik and a Roland doppeldecker, had
arrived in the country to be tested under
African conditions. This expedition had
official backing. Von Scheele and Fiedler
were the pilots. There was also a pilot
mechanic named Truck who remained in
the country and is still farming there. The
aircraft behaved well in spite of the heat,
and the Aviatik made a number of flights
in the south within its range of two
hundred and fifty miles.

A really useful machine was the Aviatik.
One of this type had just been awarded a

prize of five thousand pounds in Europe
for covering fourteen hundred miles
within twenty-four hours. Both the
Aviatik and the Roland had one-hundred
horse-power Mercedes motors giving
them a speed of seventy miles an hour.
Their tubular steel construction was in
advance of British aircraft design. They
also had special compasses, helio
apparatus and excellent cameras.

When war broke out pilots and aircraft
were taken over immediately by the army,
and Peter Falk was appointed air staff
officer. The story of the improvised
bombs they used - jam tins filled with
dynamite and shells with streamers
attached to keep the noses down - has
been told. Many old soldiers will
remember the incident on Christmas Day
1914 when the Aviatik came over as usual
and dropped a suitably-inscribed football
on the South African camp at Tschaukaib.
But there were two incidents which the
official war histories overlooked.

One was the forced landing made by the
pilot Fiedler near Steinkopf in
Namaqualand. I believe that was the only
occasion in any war when a hostile
aircraft landed on Union soil. Peter Falk
told me that Fiedler was operating from
Warmbad, observing the movements of
South African troops along the Orange
River, when his engine failed. The landing
speed of the Aviatik was only twenty-five
miles an hour, incredible though that may
seem to modern pilots. Thus he was able
to put the machine down easily. Peter
Falk, who was on horseback with a patrol
south of the river, galloped up and helped
Fiedler to remedy the defect and start his
engine. They had to work fast, as South
African forces could be seen in the
distance. Fiedler got off in time.

The other incident concerned a goat, the
regimental mascot of a South African
unit. The goat roamed about each camp,
grazing where it could. After one
experience of aerial bombing it acted as a

"goat radar" outfit. Long before human
ears had picked up the sound of an
approaching aeroplane the goat would
take fright, dash into a tent, and crouch
beneath a stretcher. It never gave a false
alarm.

I have always wanted to hear a first-hand
account of another African flying episode
of World War I - the attempt which the
Germans made in 1917 to relieve the
hard-pressed Von Lettow Vorbeck in East
Africa. The British intelligence knew
nothing about it until early the following
year, when a German bandolier containing
ammunition made in Stuttgart in 1917,
was found in the Sudan desert. Arabs had
previously reported "a noisy cigar
marching explosively in the heavens", but
no one in authority had believed them.

In fact, the Germans had dispatched the
Zeppelin L 59 from Bulgaria, loaded with
over fifty tons of ammunition, rifles,
medical stores and many other items. The
muslin envelope was to be torn up and

used for bandages, and another part of the
fabric could be made into tents and
clothes. The airship could not return.

It was a forlorn hope, of course, as the
Zeppelin had to locate Von Lettow, and
his position was vague. Nevertheless they
set off hopefully, found their friends the
Turks firing on them by mistake, and
returned to base for repairs. On the second
trip they crossed the Mediterranean safely.
When the crew looked down on Africa.,
they were the first men to do so from an
airship.

At forty-five miles an hour the L 59
cruised down the Nile valley, the river
guiding them by day and the stars by
night. Bockholt, the commander, began to
feel his chances of success growing. The
idea was to fly low over the Makonde
highlands, where Von Lettow had last
been reported, and drop a parachutist if
troops were sighted. The parachutist
would signal a code word if it was safe to
land.

Bockholt had covered nearly three
thousand miles from his base in Bulgaria
when he was recalled by wireless. "Last
foothold of Lettow Vorbeck Revala lost,"
ran the message. "All Makonde highlands
in possession of British. Return
immediately."

This was a blow to the twenty-two men on
board the Zeppelin. They would have felt
even more disappointed if they had known
that Von Lettow was still carrying on his
guerrilla warfare; indeed, he did not
surrender until after the Armistice.
However, the L 59 returned to her base
without incident, having covered four
thousand two hundred miles. She had
been aloft for ninety-five hours, and she
still had enough fuel in her tanks for
another sixty-four hours.

It was a great and gallant performance.
That was World War I, remember, and
those were the early days which I find
more romantic than this era of jet aircraft
and atom bombs.

Though I have flown far and wide in
aeroplanes I always wanted to make an
airship cruise. I was in London in 1931
when the Graf Zeppelin called, and tried
to book a flight round the British Isles for
twenty-five pounds; but the newspapers
had taken every cabin for their reporters.
So I went instead to watch the monster
landing at Hanworth with the great Hugo
Eckener in command. Eckener was really
the only man in the world who could
handle a giant airship successfully, and he
did it, with great skill, by avoiding storms.

The local fire brigade acted as ground
crew when the Graf Zeppelin came down
at Hanworth. A rope was dropped from
the airship's bow, and this was made fast
to a ring screwed into the earth. Then the
long ship was hauled down and trimmed
fore and aft, so that she hung poised a few
feet above the ground. No sooner had she
come into this position than the crowd,
forgetting the usual British sense of
discipline, jumped over the low rope

barriers and raced in thousands towards
the airship. I ran with them. The firemen
and police were helpless. Directly below
the enormous envelope jostled all these
people, and many of them were smoking.

I stood peering into the navigating
gondola, only a few feet away from
Eckener. He was livid with fear, as well
he might have been. All the way down the
airship members of the crew were leaning
out of windows and gondolas and
shouting to the crowd in English and
German, pleading with them not to
smoke. They were conscious of the
enormous bags of hydrogen, and so was I;
yet I remained there, spellbound, until the
loudspeakers came into action and the
crowd drifted reluctantly away from the
airship. A crowd can be a senseless
phenomenon, but it is hard to escape the
influence of that powerful, surrounding
mass mind.

In the early days, only a few years after
World War I, the Belgians started
commercial flying in the Congo. I knew
one of the first pilots to fly over those
dense forests. He told me that more than
anything else he dreaded the propellers
breaking up in the air. It had happened
several times, owing to the steamy heat
playing havoc with the three-ply wood
and glue. The same man informed me that
one of the pioneer air liners vanished one
day, and it took six weeks to locate it, in
the treetops, with all on board dead.

The old hands faced queer risks in Africa.
I remember a pilot attempting to land at
the Salisbury aerodrome was kept aloft by
swarms of locust birds. He saw them on
the ground, and decided not to risk a
landing for fear of breaking his propellers.
Zooming and circling did not disturb
them, so finally he fired a Verey light and
dispersed the flock. Locusts have brought
machines to the ground on several occa-
sions, and experienced pilots always steer

clear of a swarm. A locust drawn into the
air intake pipe stopped more than one
engine.

Then there are those unwelcome
"stowaways" that sometimes appear after
a machine has left the ground. The late
Captain Davenport once came upon a
large snake in the fuselage after landing; it
must have travelled hundreds of miles
with him. My old friend, the late John
Williamson found himself aloft in East
Africa with a swarm of bees, which
became alarmed by the roar of the engine
and flew out to sting the pilot. He had to
suffer in silence, for there was nothing he
could do. Wasps gave a great deal of
trouble in that territory, for they crept into
the Pitot tube and put the air speed
indicator out of action. On another
occasion Williamson found a nest of field
mice in his aeroplane.

A pilot who flew over the salt lake at
Nakuru, Kenya, suddenly observed a
flock of flamingos rising ahead like a pink

and white cloud. He landed after a severe
fright, for several of the flamingos had
fouled the machine and partially jammed
the controls.

Stranger still have been the unexpected
adventures of pilots on the ground. A
South African Air Force officer engaged
in air irrigation survey in Zululand was
astounded to see a large, angry rhinoceros
charging through the camp. Two
machines were standing in the open, and
when the crews saw the rhino coming
towards them with head down like a
battering ram, they clambered into the
cockpits and on to the wings. The rhino
stopped six feet short, sniffed and turned
away, scattering petrol tins as he went. A
German air expedition filming big-game
in East Africa was not so fortunate. One
machine was attacked by a lion, which
damaged a wing. Another was charged by
a rhinoceros and a man in the cockpit was
injured. A third machine was destroyed by
a cyclone.

The sun may be the air pilot's enemy in
tropical Africa. Lady Heath, flying
northwards to Bulawayo, felt sudden
pains in the back of her neck. She
remembered shutting off her engine and
putting the nose down in a glide. The
landing must have been made by instinct
for she had lost consciousness when the
machine touched the long gross. Natives
were pouring milk down her throat when
she came to her senses.

Air accidents sometimes have queer
sequels in South Africa; none more
remarkable perhaps, than that of the sick
man who was cured by a crash. He was a
government official in Ovamboland,
suffering from blackwater fever, and an
aeroplane was sent to fetch him to
hospital in Windhoek. It was a hot day,
and after a long run the machine failed to
rise. The undercarriage struck a palm tree,
and the machine ended up on her nose.
The patient, whose condition was critical,
was thrown forward heavily and bruised,

while the pilot was taken out suffering
from shock. An urgent message to
Windhoek brought a doctor by air. He
found the patient making a rapid recovery
from a grave disease in which any
movement may be fatal.

One crash between the wars which still
haunts me occurred near Sir Lowry's Pass
in the early days of the South African air
mail service. It was a type of aircraft
which became notorious all over the
world for wing collapses. That day a
violent black southeaster was raging. The
aircraft, with pilot and two passengers,
had just come over the mountains when a
wing broke off. I raced out there for the
newspaper, and found the burnt-out
machine in a field, the charred bodies
covered with sacks. No doubt they had all
been killed instantly when they hit the
ground, before the fire started. No one
could have survived that impact. But the
seconds while the doomed aeroplane
plunged wildly to earth, no longer

answering the controls; that was a period I
should not like to face.

This crash had a peculiar sequel. There
was a small parcel of diamonds on board,
worth about a thousand pounds. Only one
man in the crowd surrounding the wreck
knew of this parcel. He was the Cape
Town agent of the private company which
operated the service in those pioneer days.
For a fortnight after the crash he sifted the
soil all round the wreck, and he recovered
every diamond except one.

Old aircraft do not always go to the
scrapheap in Africa. No doubt some of
you remember the Silver Queen II, flown
by Van Ryneveld and Brand in 1920 from
Egypt to a point near Bulawayo where
they crashed. Years afterwards I learned
that the fuel tanks were being used by a
farmer as grain bins for his poultry. He
had named his place Silver Queen Farm.
A broken propeller decorated the farm
gateway. Rudder and tail planes were

hanging as historic relics in the Bulawayo
drill-hall.

Then there was the Vickers biplane in
which Broome and Cockerell flew from
London to Tabora in Tanganyika during
the same early period of ill-fated attempts
to reach Cape Town by air. After the
crash the heavy bomber lay in the bush for
a time. Then the settlers found themselves
in need of a club. They made the Vickers
fuselage into a neat saloon bar, while the
undamaged wings formed a shady
veranda.

Perhaps the strangest tale of all was the
discovery in 1928 of a small and ancient
aeroplane on the roof of a high
Johannesburg office building. It had not
been flown there. Someone had dumped it
on the roof, presumably when he found
that he had no further use for it. No one
had visited the roof for years when the
aeroplane was found. The owner of the
building had never suspected that it was

there. It was just a mysterious echo of the
early days.

I have known many brave airmen, many
famous pilots in war and in peace. But the
most remarkable aeronaut I ever met was
a low-caste Indian who performed under
the nickname of Fearless Peter. I was
strolling round a carnival show on the
racecourse at Port Louis, Mauritius when
I saw an old, patched balloon being
inflated. It was a fire balloon, the first I
had ever seen, and the last. A couple of
dozen men were keeping it down as the
hot air went through a pipe into the
envelope. As the balloon swelled, the
crowd grew; there were soldiers of the
garrison, seamen and stewards. Everyone
was leaving the big wheel, the merry-go-
round and shooting galleries and paying to
enter the arena where the balloon strained
at its ropes.

At this moment Fearless Peter appeared,
gorgeous in the spangles and knee-

breeches of a circus artist. His black hair
shone with oil, and his breast with
imitation medals. I felt that many an air
hero with rows of genuine decorations
would not have cared to gain his ribbons
in the same way as Fearless Peter.

When the balloon was full Stanton, the
tough Australian who ran the show, made
a speech. For thirty cents, he announced
anyone in the crowd could shake hands
with Fearless Peter. Many did so, for there
is a Roman holiday atmosphere about
these affairs and if anything went wrong
the people who had shaken hands with
Fearless Peter would be able to boast of
the experience.

"This brave boy is about to rise thousands
of feet above your heads," declared
Stanton when he saw the last cent had
been squeezed out of the handshakes.
"His life depends on one frail rope. How
many of you would risk your lives like
Fearless Peter? Give him a cheer, I say."

The crowd cheered, and Fearless Peter ran
his hands nervously over his parachute
harness.

"Are you all ready, Pete?" inquired
Stanton.

"All ready, boss."
"Then let go."

In a second Fearless Peter was a hundred
feet above the crowd, clinging to the little
trapeze which hung below the open,
smoking mouth of the balloon. In two
seconds the balloon had dwindled to the
size of an orange. In ten seconds it was
time for Peter to jump, before the balloon
drifted away over the city and the sea.
And he jumped! You could see the streak
of the opening parachute as he flashed
downwards. You could hear the whip
crack as the parachute opened. Mercifully
it was in a better state of repair than the
balloon.

With the weight of Peter gone, the balloon
capsized, hot air and smoke rushed out,
and the bag followed the parachute to the
ground. The race-course was covered with
people, running frantically, each one
intent on being the first to shake hands
with Peter. Down Peter came, touching
the earth lightly, then rolling over and
bumping as the wind pulled the parachute.

That night I went to Stanton's Midway
Show again, for I wanted to talk to
Fearless Peter. I walked past the swing-
boats and the caravans, and I found him at
last. His moment of glory was over.
Fearless Peter was back at his usual job,
in charge of the coconut shy.

Chapter 11

A Secret Of The Sands

South West Africa runs through my
life as a series of vivid and often dramatic
memories. When I think of all those
journeys through the years to the farthest
corners of the land I realise that it is not
always a mistake to return to places where
you have been happy. Never have I found
disappointment in South West Africa.
Each time I cross the frontier my affection
for the country revives.

It is a land of mysteries. Traces of strange
people, reports of queer animals and signs
of old adventures remain unexplained.
You never know what scene of desperate

struggle you will find round the next
dune; and the barren country usually
provides the most baffling riddles. Some
graves speak for themselves. The spent
cartridges still lie on the scene of the
skirmishes of long ago; and occasionally
there is an inscription: "Gefecht zwischen
den deutschen Schutztruppen und den
Hottentotten." There were also lost
patrols, and men whose skeletons still lie
where they died of thirst.

But it is not the discovery of tragedies
which makes me love the country. It is not
the thirst it raises. It is hard to analyse the
appeal of South West Africa, though I
appreciate the change of atmosphere it
offers. German names make a difference;
Hohenhorst and Hohenfelde, Rosenhof
and Mecklenburg, among the Afrikaans
and English names. South West has forts
and castles. Once I came across a rail-car,
on the narrow gauge line at Usakos. It
bore the German eagles and the insignia
of the Crown Prince, for whose use it had

been made. And they told me it had
reached a speed of nearly ninety miles an
hour on the two-foot track. One does not
have such encounters in the Union.

I like the villages of wide streets and low,
solid houses; the kameeldoring trees in the
burning sand; the date palms round many
an oasis; the luscious meat and fine cream
and butter; the family parties in the bars,
which open on Sundays, according to the
easy-going German system. I remember
the carnations growing out of the desert at
Swakopmund and the pink tints of the
Walvis Bay flamingos.

Yet when all is said and done, the reason
why I have gone to South West Africa
again and again is that only there have I
been able to penetrate almost unknown
country. One day in the police station at
Maltahohe I pointed to a spot marked
Sossus Vlei on the huge map on the wall.
"What's it like at Sossus Vlei?" I asked,
for the vlei was far out in the Namib

desert and one would hardly expect to
find a vlei in such a place.

"I've never been there," confessed the
police sergeant. "Our patrol's don't go
there and I've never met anyone who has
been there." I asked a number of people
questions about Sossus Vlei, but I have
still to find anyone who has visited that
vlei in the desert. And I have not reached
Sossus Vlei myself - yet.

In the forbidden Kaokoveld, where I spent
a memorable month with the Bernard
Carp scientific expedition, there are many
mysteries. The coast especially, that grim
shore which has become known as
"Skeleton Coast", holds ghastly secrets.

During the German days, before the fort at
Zessfontein became a ruin, a party of
Kaokoveld natives arrived one day
escorting a little white girl, fair-haired,
about six or seven years old. The officer
in charge of Zessfontein heard a weird
tale that day. It seems that old Chief

Oorlog had sent a party to the coastal pans
for salt. These men came upon a spoor
which twisted away across the barren veld
leaving a groove. They had seen nothing
like it before, but they identified the tracks
of wagon wheels as well, and so they
followed the spoor. It led them to a small
forest where there was a spring. There
they found the wagon. One wheel had
been damaged beyond repair, and the
travellers had replaced it with a tree-trunk,
which had left the deep groove.

All the oxen were dead. The little white
girl came out of a hut; and in the hut was
a small white boy. He died next day. In
another hut some distance away were the
bodies of several white people, men and
women. They had been dead for a long
time. The men hurried back to their chief
with the little girl, and thus she came at
last to Zessfontein. The officer tried to
solve the mystery of that ill-fated wagon,
but he failed. The little girl went to a
German mission, and finally she was

taken to one of their schools in Germany.
No one ever gathered the details of that
old Kaokoveld disaster.

One mystery of South West Africa
puzzled me for years. I know the answer,
now; indeed, I might have revealed this
secret earlier, but it belonged to that class
of tale which could not be told while the
people concerned were alive.

No doubt there is still a file at police
headquarters in Windhoek dealing with
the Baby Austin car which entered the
Kaokoveld illegally from Angola in 1931
and returned to Angola before the
trespassers could be arrested. Tracks were
found all the way from the Kunene to Fort
Rock Point and beyond, an almost
incredible journey in the sand and
sandstorms of that coast for such a small
car. The late Major C. H. L. Hahn,
commissioner of Ovamboland, made a
dash for the Kunene mouth accompanied
by his wife, a police sergeant and twenty-
four carriers, but all this effort was wasted

and the police never knew the details of
the raid. It baffled the Diamond Detective
Department for many years.

I gave an account of Hahn' s journey (told
to me by Mrs. Hahn) in a previous book. 5
That brought the man who organised the
raid to see me. I promised him that I
would not mention his name during his
lifetime, and as he was only a middle-
aged man I never expected to tell the story
at all. He died in 1954.

This man who planned the Baby Austin
raid was Mr. Joseph Suskin of Highlands
North, Johannesburg, and he was
employed by a syndicate which included a
highly-placed politician of dubious
reputation. The politician had heard that
the Kaokoveld coast was rich in
diamonds, but Mr. A. J. Werth, Adminis-
trator of South West Africa, was refusing
to allow prospectors into that part of the
country. However, the politician gave his

5 "Lords of the Last Frontier."

guarantee (for what it was worth) that if
Suskin and his men were arrested, he
would see that they were not brought into
court.

Suskin left Johannesburg in June 1930
with seven men, two cars, two motor-
lorries, four rifles and ample money for
the expedition. It was the start of a most
unusual adventure; one which was not to
end until July the following year. Suskin' s
convoy drove up through Ovamboland
into Angola. They knew it would be
dangerous to force an entry into the
Kaokoveld from South West Africa,
whereas they might reach the Kaokoveld
coast from Angola without anyone in
authority becoming aware of it.

The rifles were a mistake. Portuguese
officials dislike private individuals to own
firearms. It savours of revolution. There
was a delay of three weeks, while Suskin
persuaded one official after another that
his party merely wished to shoot for the
pot. Then they were allowed to drive on,

over the mountains and down to
Mossamedes and the sea.

South they went, all of them on board one
motor-lorry, along the desert coast to Port
Alexandre, a little fishing station with two
streets made of concrete slabs. Already an
Ovambo who spoke Portuguese and
Afrikaans had been engaged as
interpreter. Now an old Portuguese hunter
named Pimental joined the party as guide.
He had been in Angola for more than
forty years and had led a previous
expedition to the remote parts of the
Kunene. He wanted five pounds a day for
his services, but Suskin got him for two
pounds.

Pimental took them along dry river beds,
and after four days they reached a point
ten miles from the Kunene river mouth.
There were no roads in that region. It was
heavy going, and they were dodging
boulders most of the time. About a mile
from the river mouth they found a place
which seemed to be narrow enough for

the crossing. So the lorry went to the
fishing settlement at Tiger Bay (thirty
miles north of the Kunene mouth) and
returned with a load of empty wine
barrels. Suskin and his men then set to
work making a raft. They wasted several
weeks on this task, but at each attempt the
current was too strong and the raft showed
signs of sinking.

By this time Suskin was running short of
food and money, so he decided to return
to Mossamedes and cable to Johannesburg
for money. "I walked up the beach from
Tiger Bay to Port Alexandre with several
native carriers," Suskin told me. "It was
sixty-five miles, but it would have been
easier walking five hundred miles on firm
ground. At every step I went ankle-deep
into the sand. The water cask was too
small, and I was thirsty when I arrived
after a forced march of two days."

Suskin hired a car at Port Alexandre and
drove to Mossamedes. The money was
sent promptly, but he did not fancy

walking down that beach again and he had
to wait some time before a fifty-foot
schooner picked him up. She plied
between Tiger Bay and the Congo with
salted fish, under sail only. Suskin found
the whole expedition waiting for him at
Tiger Bay. They had left the river owing
to shortage of food. Senhor Bobela Motta,
the hospitable chefe du Poste or
magistrate at Tiger Bay had been housing
and feeding them.

Suskin led his party back to the river, and
another attempt was made to construct a
raft which would float the motor-lorry
across. Again they failed. All the
expedition members except Suskin then
decided that the venture was hopeless.
They returned to Mossamedes, where the
other vehicles had been left, and drove
back to South Africa. Suskin stayed on
with the native interpreter. He had made
up his mind that he would not give up the
quest before he had seen something of the
desert coast beyond the river.

It meant walking, and Suskin was
prepared to walk. Motta, who had been so
kind to the party, heard the full story of
Suskin' s quest and offered to accompany
him. He organised a column of sixteen
native carriers, and they all crossed the
Kunene in a boat and set off southwards
along the beach. They were in forbidden
territory, but the chances of dying of thirst
were probably greater than the risk of
encountering a police patrol.

Here I should explain the reasons which
led the government of South West Africa
to place an "iron curtain" between the
Kaokoveld and the rest of the territory.
Diamonds had been found in fabulous
quantities a long way to the south, and it
had always been suspected that there
might be diamond deposits along the
Kaokoveld coast. However, the
government denied that the ban (which
was imposed in 1929 and is still in force)
had anything to do with diamonds. It was
stated officially that the main reason was

to avoid long and possibly dangerous
police patrols in that unmapped corner of
the country. At that time motor transport
was almost unknown in the remote parts
of the Kaokoveld, and the police used
camels and horses.

Another reason given was the presence of
lung sickness among cattle along the
Angola side of the border and in parts of
the Kaokoveld. By proclaiming a cattle-
free zone in the Kaokoveld, it was hoped
that the disease would be kept out of
South West Africa. This aim was in fact
achieved. Nevertheless, to this day many
people in South West Africa firmly
believe that the Kaokoveld was closed
because a treasure-house of diamonds had
been discovered. The maximum penalty
laid down for entering the prohibited area
was £500 or one year's imprisonment.
Suskin thought he was safe.

As the column led by Suskin and Motta
marched, they left dumps of food every
twenty miles. They had an outfit for

distilling sea water, and this worked
extremely well. Driftwood provided the
fuel, and no one went thirsty in that
featureless, glaring desert. Cape Frio was
the first point of interest. Five miles
before they reached the Cape, they found
the beach strewn with deck chairs,
cupboards and other ship's furniture, beds
and at least a hundred demijohns of port
wine. They opened several of the wicker
bottles and found the wine delicious.
Motta knew something about this flotsam.
Seven years previously the Portuguese
steamer Mossamedes had become a total
loss on Cape Frio in fog. She was a
passenger liner of seven thousand tons,
formerly the P. & O. liner Sumatra. She
had 258 souls on board when she left
Table Bay on her last voyage, bound north
for the Angola ports and Lisbon. One
night shortly after midnight the coast
radio stations and half a dozen ships
picked up a distress call from the
Mossamedes : "Ashore Cape Frio S.O.S."

But the first ship to reach Cape Frio found
the Portuguese liner abandoned - anchor
and cable out, main gangway lowered, a
rope ladder trailing over the side near the
stern, the lifeboats gone.

A French gunboat, the famous old British
sloop Dwarf, a Portuguese cruiser and a
German liner all joined in the search for
the fleet of lifeboats. Seven boats had left
the ship. Six boats, with 227 people on
board, were picked up. The fate of the
seventh boat remained a mystery. There
were women and children in that boat, and
two British passengers: Mr. John Lane, a
farmer, and Mr. C. C. Spring, a civil
engineer.

Suskin and Motta solved the mystery of
the seventh boat. They halted at Cape Frio
after a march of more than sixty miles
from the river; and there on the beach,
amid further wreckage, they found thirty
skeletons.

"It looked to me as though these people
had landed safely from the wreck and then
died of thirst," Suskin told me. "I slept on
a sand dune at Cape Frio that night, and
close to my blankets I found a pair of
shoes. Next day I dug into the sand and
found coat buttons, and then the skull of a
girl of about fifteen. She must have
wandered away from the others and died
alone. We buried her with the other
skeletons and Motta said a Roman
Catholic prayer at the graveside. Then we
made a wooden cross and marched on."

Before leaving the Cape Frio area Suskin
found a huge packing case, evidently part
of the lost liner's cargo. The planks were
broken and Suskin put his hand in just as
an eight-inch scorpion walked out. They
opened the case and found women's
dresses, ostrich feather hats, underclothes,
crockery, cutlery, pens and pencils. The
native carriers were almost naked, and
they were feeling the cold sea winds.
Suskin invited them to help themselves

from the packing case. When the
expedition moved on the savages were
clad in silk evening dresses. "It provided a
little comic relief after the discovery of
the skeletons," said Suskin.

They reached a point fifteen miles south
of Cape Frio, examining the beach for
signs of diamondiferous gravel but
finding nothing promising. Then the
capitao of the native carriers approached
Motta and declared: "We are now in
cannibal country and we are afraid to go
on. Suppose the cannibals want to eat us?"

"Eat them first," replied Motta firmly.

Suskin and Motta decided, however, that
it was no use proceeding on foot. There
was a huge area to be searched, and the
Kaokoveld diamonds would not be found
until they succeeded in bringing some
form of motor transport across the river.
Suskin thought it would be possible with
the aid of a light car such as a Baby

Austin, which could be rafted across the
river.

So the expedition marched back to the
Kunene. Suskin climbed thankfully into
his motor-lorry on the north bank and
drove with tyres deflated up the beach to
Port Alexandre. The lorry would go no
farther; he abandoned it, and hired a car
for the drive to Mossamedes. From there
he took a ship to Cape Town and returned
to Johannesburg to report to the syndicate.

The syndicate would not give up the plan.
Every member was convinced that
somewhere on the Kaokoveld coast there
was a beach littered and glittering with
diamonds. Suskin's idea of a Baby Austin
expedition was approved and the car was
supplied. In April 1931 Suskin sailed
from Cape Town for Mossamedes in the
Portuguese liner Colonial. This time he
had one companion, the late Mr. S. O.
Swailes, an adventurous Irishman who
had been a soldier, farmer and railway
official in charge of mules. Swailes had

Sam SWAILES and the baby car on the Kaokoveld coast.

been in the Kaokoveld in 1928, helping to
repatriate the Angola Boers, and was
selected because of his previous exper-
ience of the country. He was neither an
expert motor mechanic nor a man accus-
tomed to handling diamonds.

Suskin and Swailes landed with the baby
car at Mossamedes on April 27, 1931, and
set out across the coastal desert a few days
later. The open car, stripped of its hood,
windscreen and headlamps, travelled well.
Suskin told me that he covered one stretch
of nearly fifty miles at night without any
lights; he was on the beach between the
dunes and the sea, watching the phosphor-
escent water out of the corner of his eye
all the time.

When they reached the southern end of
Tiger Bay it became necessary to put the
car on a boat to transport it to the fishing
station on the far side of the bay. The car
fell into the sea, and next day they
discovered that the damage was serious.
They could not repair the magneto and

battery on the spot, and so both men
returned to Mossamedes by fishing boat
with the car. The expedition was delayed
for a month as a result of this accident.
Nevertheless, on June 8 they were at the
mouth of the Kunene, making a raft. At
the river mouth they found two diamond
prospectors, one Belgian and one
American, and they had a number of
native labourers with them. This was a
stroke of luck for Suskin and Swailes. The
river was running strongly and the water
had spread out to a width of about half a
mile at the mouth. Suskin and Swailes
would never have got the car across
unaided.

"On the first trip we had shot eight
crocodiles near the river mouth," Suskin
recalled. "This time we saw a herd of
gemsbok crossing the river in the shallows
at the mouth, and Swailes challenged me
to wade across. It makes my blood curdle
to think of it now, but both of us got over
safely. Then we knew that we could haul

the car across provided we had enough
men to prevent the raft from drifting out
to sea."

Their friend the Belgian prospector lent
them his labourers, and on June 13 the raft
was taken across and the car landed
undamaged on the south bank. Suskin and
Swailes had one native with them for the
car dash along the Kaokoveld coast. They
had the best of provisions, tinned Madeira
butter and Swiss cheese. Nevertheless, the
successful river crossing marked the
beginning rather than the end of their
hardships.

"It blew so hard that you could lean on the
wind at an angle of forty-five degrees and
not fall over," went on Suskin. "A lot of
sand came with that wind and made life a
misery. We camped above high-water
mark, which we judged by the flotsam and
jetsam, and spent four days there taking
the car to pieces to find a defect. Swailes
slept in the car and I camped alongside
under canvas. On the fifth morning we

were all ready to move off when a wave
came roaring up the beach and passed the
spot where the car was standing. We got
away all right, but if that wave had come
in the night while the car was being
repaired it would have wiped out our
expedition."

They drove to Cape Frio, a low, rocky
cape where the seals come on shore
occasionally. There they left a tin of
petrol. South of Cape Frio, beyond the
turning point of Suskin' s previous
journey, they came upon a wooden sailing
ship half buried in the dunes and about a
hundred yards above high-water mark.
(This coast is one of the most changeable
in the world, and long stretches of it are
extending westwards as the strong
Benguella current throws up more and
more sand.) Swailes found a chair with a
name-plate which he took away as a
souvenir. The plate read "Victor N.
Franco", and that may have been either

the name of the ship or the owner of the
chair.

Two hundred miles south of Kunene they
found a gravel deposit with about a
hundred pegs dated December 1929 and
marked "Precious Stones", left by a pros-
pector named Isaacs. "We dug in this
area, but found no diamonds," Suskin
informed me. Near the gravel was a hatch
cover from a ship and the skeleton of a
white man. Burnt into the boards were the
words: "W. McMann, survivor of ..."
Swailes, who noted this discovery in his
diary, could not decipher the rest of the
inscription. At another spot some miles
away Swailes found eleven more
skeletons and some abandoned carts. He
buried all the skeletons, collected various
personal articles and handed them over to
Motta, the Portuguese magistrate, when
he returned to Tiger Bay.

Suskin did not mention the episode of the
skeletons when telling me his story. It is
possible that he was prospecting in a

different area when Swailes found the
skeletons. An incident which both men
noted at this time was the barking of wild
dogs round their camp at night. "Swailes
said the scouts of the pack had found us,
and that the rest of the dogs would come
up and tear us to pieces," said Suskin. "On
this occasion, to avoid trouble with the
Portuguese, we had brought no firearms,
and we felt uneasy. One day we came to a
large clump of reeds in a river bed to the
north of Fort Rock Point. There is a
water-hole among the reeds, but we saw a
spoor which resembled a lion, and dared
not enter the reeds unarmed."

Suskin and Swailes were some way to the
south of Fort Rock Point when they
decided they had gone far enough. They
drove back to the Kunene without
incident, taking four days. With the aid of
the labourers the car was floated over the
river. Suskin and Swailes returned to
Mossamedes, cabled for money, and

Sam SWAILES before the diamong raiding expedition started.

finally reached their homes in Johannes-
burg.

The mystery of the Baby Austin tracks,
found at various points on the desolate
coast long afterwards, has been solved.
But the diamond legend cannot be cleared
up with the same degree of satisfaction.
Suskin told me emphatically: "I believe
one of the early prospectors salted a claim
with Namaqualand diamonds - hence the
stories of great wealth which persist to
this day."

Mr. Sam Swailes, son of Suskin's partner
in the venture, gave me the following
information in a letter: "My father dis-
covered a very rich deposit of diamonds.
When I asked him why he had not told
Joe Suskin, who was in a camp a few
miles away, he replied that he did not trust
the syndicate which had financed the trip.
They had not fulfilled their obligations
while he was away. So my father thought
it wise to maintain silence just then,
although he did mention to Joe Suskin at

Mossamedes that he had found by chance
what they were looking for."

Who was McMann? I put the question to
Mr. Swailes, junior, and here is his reply:
"My father thought that he was the last
member to die of the expedition whose
skeletons he found beside the carts. It is
possible, however, that McMann was a
shipwreck survivor. My father brought the
board carved by McMann back to
Johannesburg with him. He burnt the
board left by Isaacs, showing the position
of the gravel deposit."

You remember the American prospector
working at the Kunene river mouth when
Suskin and Swailes passed over? He
reported the raid to the South African
Police, but the message took so long to
reach police headquarters in Pretoria that
the diamond raiders had departed long
before Major Hahn and his party reached
the coast.

Since then many raiders have gone
hopefully in quest of the diamond treasure
of the Kaokoveld. They have searched by
air, land and sea. Some have doubtless
escaped undetected, like Suskin and
Swailes. Others have paid heavy fines or
ended up in gaol. You will not hear of
Sam Swailes, son of the late S. O.
Swailes, in any raiding expedition. He lent
me his father's diary (with certain pages
torn out) and the photographs of the Baby
Austin expedition. Sam Swailes knows
the Kaokoveld coast, for he was there on
naval service during World War II; but he
promised his father that he would never
go there illegally. If ever the Kaokoveld is
thrown open to prospectors, however,
Sam Swailes will be on his way, with the
missing pages of the diary in his pocket.

Chapter 12

Legends Of The Victoria Falls

MOSI-OA-TUNYA! "You must hear the
thunder before you realise to the full why
the Mashonas called this place "the smoke
that sounds". But I was dizzy so close to
the edge, and moved away to clear my
head.

In the Rain Forest I found myself thinking
of a map I had seen, d'Anville's map
printed by Isaac Tirion in Amsterdam
nearly two centuries ago. It showed a
"Groote Waterval", half way across

Southern Africa, and "Zimbaoe" in the
land of Monomotapa.

Some historians believe there were white
men staring at the roaring waters of the
Victoria Falls many years before David
Livingstone arrived. It has long been my
belief that Kipling was right when he
wrote of the "lone grey company before
the pioneers". I have found clear proof of
such adventurers in more than one of
Africa's remote corners. The legends of
the Victoria Falls are worth studying.

I am aware of a modern official attitude in
the Rhodesia's which is sarcastic and
resentful when any claim is made which
conflicts with that of the explorer whose
memorial stands near the Devil's Cataract.
However, the reputation of David
Livingstone is unassailable. He made the
Victoria Falls known to the world, and the
achievements of his noble life rose far
above geographical discoveries. Now let
me add that I do not think that Living-
stone was the first at the Falls.

Some historians believe there were white men staring at the roaring waters of the Victoria Falls any

years before David LIVINGSTONE arrived.

Earliest of all claimants are the Portu-
guese. Some of their maps, drawn
between the years 1600 and 1700, and
housed in the Vatican library, depict a
"Grande Cataract" on a river which must
be the Zambesi, then known to the
Portuguese as the Cuama. (I shall deal
with that "Grande Cataract" later.) I
discussed the Portuguese theory with Mr.
Edward C. Rashleigh, author of a standard
work on the world's great waterfalls; and
he had found some evidence in favour of
Father Silbiera, a Portuguese priest,
having visited the Falls early in the
eighteenth century.

Captain J. J. Reynard, a former curator of
the Victoria Falls, carried out a great deal
of research in this direction, aided by
Father E. King. Both these investigators
were impressed by the Portuguese claim.
The old explorers out of Lisbon
performed mighty feats. Barros, the
historian, mentioned Lake Nyasa early in
the sixteenth century, though Livingstone

in 1859 was the official discoverer. Lopez
published a book of travel in 1578, and
his map showed not only Nyasa but
Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika. It is not
disputed that the Portuguese knew of
Zimbabwe centuries ago. That name (spelt
Simbaoe) appeared on their maps in the
middle of the sixteenth century, and their
knights in armour penetrated the present
Rhodesia in search of gold not long after-
wards. They were at Zimbabwe, and they
might have gone as far as the Falls.
However, Mr. Reynard and Father King
made the sad discovery that the
earthquake and fire which devastated
Lisbon in 1775 had destroyed the Zambesi
records.

Here I must explain a trap into which
many have fallen - the "Grande
Cataracte" of so many old maps. There is
a dramatic gorge on the Zambesi just
above Tete, and six hundred miles down-
stream from the Victoria Falls. This gorge
contains the Kebra-basa rapids, ranking

next to the Victoria Falls in grandeur. The
rapids form a spectacle which no
cartographer could possibly ignore. They
are several hundred miles from the sea, far
enough inland to cause endless confusion
when inexperienced searchers pore over
the rough maps on which the cataracts
appear. One such map is the Boulton map
of 1794, in the Parliamentary library in
Cape Town. Naturally the "Grande
Cataracte" is not placed exactly where the
Victoria Falls were found, but the amateur
regards that as a pardonable error.

In fact, the old map-makers often knew
what they were doing. The "Grande
Cataracte" was something their
countrymen had seen. It was never
intended to represent the Victoria Falls.
So all the Portuguese claims remain
unproved, and there is a long gap before
the next possible visitor appears on the
scene. He is Karel Trichardt, eldest son of
the redoubtable Louis. These two
voortrekkers were in the front rank as

explorers, and nowadays every
schoolchild in South Africa learns of their
journeys.

Karel Trichardt made an enterprising
voyage along the East African coast in a
Portuguese schooner in 1838, seeking a
healthy land where the trekkers he had left
at Delagoa Bay might settle. He went as
far as the coast of Abyssinia, and watched
the arrival in Berbera of a caravan of
elephants, laden with trade goods and
guarded by armed horsemen. The
schooner remained for weeks and months
at certain ports. Trichardt pushed boldly
inland at several points through unknown
country. He also marched with carriers
from Sofala to Zimbabwe; and from
Quelimane he set out on a safari that took
him some way up the Zambesi. Many
writers have suggested that Trichardt
discovered the Victoria Falls on this
journey. So firm is the belief in some
quarters that a geography pamphlet

approved by the Transvaal education
department gives it as a fact.

Trichardt, of course, visited the Kebra-
basa rapids, hence the oft-repeated error.
There was not time for him to have
reached the Falls, and he never claimed to
have done so. (Mr. D. W. Kruger of the
Pretoria Archives staff made these points
absolutely clear in a paper he wrote some
years ago.) Trichardt died in 1901, and
shortly before his death at the age of
ninety he related his most memorable
experiences to G. A. Ode, State Historian
of the South African Republic. The life
story Ode recorded proves that Trichardt
saw the "waterfalls somewhere south of
Sandia", which fixes them as the Kebra-
basa rapids. No one has been able to trace
any other period in Karel Trichardt' s life
when he might have visited the Falls. He
was the sort of man who would have
allowed nothing to thwart his effort to
reach the Falls if he had been anywhere in
the neighbourhood. Sir George Cory, the

historian, firmly believed that Trichardt
saw the Falls, but I think that he, too, was
a victim of the Kebra-basa rapids.

Next on the scene is Henry Hartley, a
heavy club-footed man with blue-grey
eyes and leonine hair. For many years he
roamed the wilderness which became
Rhodesia and the Kalahari desert. His
descendants are sure that he visited the
Victoria Falls six years before
Livingstone; and I think they have made
out a fairly convincing case.

Hartley came of an 1820 Settler family.
When the voortrekkers departed he was
gripped by the spirit of adventure. Not
long afterwards he moved up to the
Transvaal and started the Magaliesberg
tobacco industry which still flourishes. He
crossed the Limpopo for the first time in
1846 accompanied by a number of
servants including a Hottentot wagon-
driver named Cresjan.

Another trek began when Hartley's eldest
son Fred was three years old. That fixes
the year as 1849. They went farther north
than they had ever been before, until they
came to an area where a steady sound as
of thunder was heard in the distance.
Hartley investigated the sound, and thus
he and Cresjan came to the brink of the
Victoria Falls.

Captain R. Hartley Thackeray, a nephew,
took down the details of this journey from
members of the family and men who had
been closely associated with Hartley. The
description of the scene given by the
Hottentot was also remembered and
noted; for the Hottentot had spoken in
wonder of the rainbow that hung over the
Falls and the drenching rain that fell from
a cloudless sky.

Mr. Henry Hartley, junior, youngest son
of the Magaliesberg pioneer, was still
alive in Johannesburg in 1948 at the age
of eighty-eight. He maintained that his
father had often told him the story of his

discovery, and he mentioned an
interesting sequel. Hartley the hunter used
to sell his ivory, horns and hides to a
storekeeper named Forsman in
Potchefstroom. He told Forsman about his
journey to the Falls. One day in 1852,
Forsman introduced Hartley to a traveller
who wanted detailed instructions for
reaching the Falls, and Hartley supplied
them. The traveller was Livingstone.

Mr. H. R. Raikes, former principal of the
Witwatersrand University, believes that
his grandfather, W. C. Oswell, reached the
Falls before Livingstone. Oswell was a
thin, charming man, a great elephant
hunter, and he ranked high as an explorer.
(He received the Paris Geographical
Society's gold medal for the discovery of
Lake Ngami, while Livingstone was
awarded the English equivalent.) It is not
disputed that the earliest accurate map
showing the position of the Victoria Falls
was that drawn by Oswell in 1851 after
his journey to the Zambesi with Living-

stone. I have never understood why
Livingstone and Oswell did not visit the
Falls on that occasion - if indeed Oswell
did not do so - for Oswell' s map bears the
remark: "Waterfall. Spray seen ten miles."

Oswell never wrote anything about his
travels. He was a modest man who
preferred his friend Livingstone to take
the credit for their discoveries. There is
some doubt about Oswell' s routes in the
neighbourhood of the Falls, and so it is
possible that he had a glimpse of the great
waterfall during the 1851 journey; hence
the family legend. Oswell was notoriously
lazy about writing. If he had not been
lazy, the story of the Falls might have
differed from the accepted version.

James Chapman, the first man to travel
overland from Durban to Walvis Bay in
1855, is thought by some writers to have
seen the Victoria Falls on the way. I can
find no ground for this belief, though I
have searched the Chapman manuscripts
in the Cape Archives with great care. No

doubt the idea arose when a study of
Chapman's routes showed that he had
once been within seventy miles of the
Falls.

Chapman, however, does tell a queer story
of a man he encountered in 1852, when he
was returning from his Deka River
expedition. This man, named J. Simpson,
was in distress. He informed Chapman
that he had been trading and hunting
along the tsetse area of the Chobe, where
all his oxen had died. Simpson declared
he had travelled down the Zambesi from
Linyanti, and had discovered a great
waterfall. Soon afterwards Simpson left
South Africa to take part in the Australian
gold rush. He made no claim apart from
his interesting conversation with
Chapman. I sometimes wish that all
explorers would yield to the common
impulse which even the great Livingstone
was unable to resist, and carve their
names and dates on trees. Then many a
legend would become a certainty.

A persistent claim to the Victoria Falls
discovery is made by descendants of one
of the old Boer hunters, Jan Viljoen. This
adventurous spirit was "wanted" by the
British authorities for the part he had
taken in the Boomplaats fight. Viljoen
linked up with Chapman for a time. Then
he organised expeditions of his own by
wagon into Msilikazi's country and went
to the Falls with a guide and fifty armed
men Msilikazi had provided. The white
men who accompanied him were his sons
George and Petrus, Jacobus Erasmus, Piet
Jacobs and Hermanus Engelbrecht.

This party, according to the Viljoen
family tradition, visited the Falls three
times before Livingstone - in 1851, 1853
and 1854. The tale was handed down with
a wealth of detail, and there is no doubt
that Viljoen and his companions did visit
the Falls. However, it was only when the
survivors of these hunting expeditions
were old men that anyone thought of
writing down their experiences. By that

time the old men had got the dates wrong.
Dr. H. C. de Wet, who investigated the
legend, found that the missionary Moffat
was the first man to travel by wagon to
Bulawayo; and Msilikazi was alarmed at
the sight of this strange vehicle. That was
in 1855, and Viljoen really visited
Msilikazi for the first time in 1859.
Livingstone paid a second visit to the
Victoria Falls in 1860. At that time the
Boer hunters were unaware of
Livingstone's previous visit, and so they
claimed to have reached the Falls first.
The legend of Viljoen' s prior discovery
still lingers.

A fascinating and definite narrative is to
be found in the records of the Pretorius
family of Marydale, Cape Province. It was
told many years ago by Willem Hendrik
Pretorius of Rietpoort in the Waterberg
district, Transvaal, and set down by his
grandson, Pieter C. Pringle of Marydale.

W. H. Pretorius was born at Graaff-Reinet
in 1821 and lived to be a hundred. He

took part in the defeat of Dingaan under
Commandant Pretorius. It was in 1855
that Pretorius and his young friend Stoffel
Snyman left the Transvaal with wagons
and oxen to hunt big-game north of the
Limpopo.

They left their wagons and oxen near
Msilikazi's kraal and marched into the
tsetse fly country at the head of a column
of two hundred carriers. Their guides led
them to a great waterfall, and there they
camped. Eight days after their arrival they
saw the smoke of another camp-fire and
paid the newcomer a visit. He was David
Livingstone, ill and hungry. Livingstone's
natives had been reduced to roasting and
grinding their rawhide shields for food.
Pretorius and Snyman were able to give
Livingstone provisions and medicine, and
remained with him until he had recovered.

Snyman died in 1920, and he, too, was
fond of relating this story of the discovery
of the Falls. If you accept it, then why did

Livingstone fail to mention his
benefactors in his own narrative of the
discovery? This is a puzzle indeed. I am
reluctant to dismiss the Pretorius-Snyman
account as pure imagination, for it rings
true. The only possible explanation may
do the great missionary explorer an
injustice. I give it merely as an attempt to
throw some light on a deep mystery.

Livingstone's main ambition was not to
explore, but to rid Africa of slavery. He
was seldom very friendly with the old
Boer hunters, for he regarded some of
them as enemies of the cause dear to his
heart. Moreover, Livingstone deplored the
wanton killing of game as a "form of
insanity". Students of his travels must
have noticed that Livingstone sometimes
made scathing references or failed to
mention certain white men he met in the
wilds if he held those men in contempt.
Nevertheless I find it hard to imagine a
Christian gentleman such as Livingstone
failing to place on record the sort of help

such as Pretorius and Snyman declared
they had given him. Nor can I reconcile
this incident with Livingstone's words,
given in "Travels of a Missionary", on his
great discovery: "It had never before been
seen by European eyes." It is just
possible, however, that Livingstone
regarded as European only those who, like
himself, were born in Europe.

When the early travellers reached the
Victoria Falls, and for long afterwards,
there were no natives living within sixty
miles of the place. They feared an evil
spirit, they said, which haunted the Falls.
Cataract Island, on the lip of the falls, was
once known as Devil's Island, and
Coillard the missionary said of it: "The
natives believe it is haunted by a
malevolent and cruel divinity, and they
make it offerings to conciliate its favour, a
bead necklace, a bracelet or some other
object, which they fling into the abyss,
bursting into lugubrious incantations,

quite in harmony with their dread and
horror."

Many white men believe in a Victoria
Falls "monster" that lives at the foot of the
falls. Captain Reynard, the curator I have
mentioned, told me that three men whose
word he could not doubt had seen this
creature.

Livingstone mentioned a serpent in these
waters, and it is part of the Barotse
folklore. Natives assured Livingstone that
it was large enough to hold a canoe and
prevent the paddlers from moving in any
direction. According to fairly recent
accounts it is thirty feet long with a small
slate-grey head and thick black body
which it exhibits in fold after fold.

Mr. V. Pare, for many years in charge of
boats on the Zambesi, climbed down to
the bottom of the Victoria Falls gorge in
1925, when the water was at the lowest
ebb in living memory. That was the first
time he set eyes on the monster. It was a

serpent-like creature, and when it saw
Pare it reared up and then vanished into a
deep cavern. Pare reported seeing it again,
years afterwards, at the foot of the Devil's
Cataract.

Natives call the monster Chipique and say
that it came up from the ocean a thousand
miles away. Native fishermen are so
afraid of it that they will not venture out at
night. "Chipique rules the river in the dark
hours," point out the fishermen.

Mr. J. W. Soper, who has trapped and shot
a great many crocodiles round about the
Falls, has heard native reports of very
large specimens. But it is unlikely that
Mr. Pare would have failed to identify a
crocodile. It may be a large python, of
course, like the legendary "great snake" of
the Orange River.

People tell you that a crazy pilot once
flew a small aircraft under the Victoria
Falls bridge. When I was a newspaper
columnist I made an effort to trace this

legend to its sources; and that brought to
my office Mr. J. J. Jacobs of Johannes-
burg with authentic information.

It was in 1931 that Jacobs was flying with
Pat Hollindrake of Nyasaland and
Rhodesia Airways. They discussed the
possibility of flying under the bridge, and
in a foolhardy spirit they decided to
attempt it next day. In the presence of a
crowd of Easter holiday makers they
narrowly escaped death.

"As soon as we passed over the main falls
we thought we were going to crash," Mr.
Jacobs recalled. "We were being sucked
down. The 'pull' of the falls is so
tremendous that there is no air to fly in.
Hollindrake pulled back the joystick and
opened the throttle full, and we missed the
bridge by a few feet. The rumour spread
that we had succeeded in flying under the
bridge, and the rumour is often revived."

For a quarter of a century there has been
an official ban on flying under the

Victoria Falls bridge. I doubt very much
whether the pilot who breaks this rule will
live to pay the fine. Up to now there have
been few air fatalities in this
neighbourhood. However, a large metal
airscrew is to be seen over one grave in
Livingstone cemetery. It is the grave of a
pilot who saw the Victoria Falls for the
first time more than twenty years ago. "I
hate leaving this place," remarked the
pilot as he climbed into the cockpit for his
departure. The air was lifeless that day,
and the runway was too short. A few
seconds later he was dead.

Some psychologists declare that the
Victoria Falls throw a sinister influence
over people who have a suicide complex.
Sir Leopold Moore (chemist and printer in
Livingstone in the early days) denied this
theory. He pointed out that many
thousands of visitors had wandered round
the edges of the gorge, with only white-
washed stones to mark the danger zones;
yet deaths of any sort had been rare.

Before the Victoria Falls bridge was built
the contractors were officially instructed
to rig a safety net such as circus trapeze
artists use. The net was placed in position.
Then the native labourers went on strike.
They imagined that they would be ordered
to fall into the net, and they did not like
the look of it! Only when the net was
removed did they go back to work.

Rockets were used when the bridge
construction was started, to hurl lines
carrying a transporter cable from cliff to
cliff. The bridge was built out
simultaneously from both sides, meeting
with perfect accuracy on April 1, 1905.
Before the girders were placed in position,
a canvas "bo' sun's chair" was used to
carry men and material over the gorge. M.
Georges Imbault, the fearless chief
construction engineer, made the first
journey himself, as the bonus he had
offered to the riggers had failed to
produce a volunteer.

Imbault also carried out another nerve-
racking task when the time came to clear
away the steel rope and pulleys that hung
below the bridge. A bonus was offered,
but no workman would tackle the job. So
Imbault was lowered on a small plank,
and he worked with both hands to release
the pulleys.

One day a girder slipped, killing a white
mechanic and sending a native to his
death in the Boiling Pot. Another man fell
seventy feet from the bridge on to the
sloping cliff. He survived, brought an
action against his employers - and lost.
Much dangerous work has been carried
out on the bridge since then, but no one
has been killed.

Men have fallen into the vortex at the foot
of the Victoria Falls and lived. There is a
tale, which may be no more than a legend,
which goes back to the days when the
bridge was under construction. I was told
that a Trooper Ramsay of the Northern
Rhodesia Police was paddling a canoe

above the Falls during the flood season.
He lost his paddle, and for seven miles the
merciless current swept him downstream
until he came to the lip of the Falls. There
man and canoe parted company and
dropped four hundred feet into the Boiling
Pot. A policeman and several others
watched the nerve-racking incident, then
hurried down to the edge of the swirling
waters. One man made a line fast round
his waist, ventured into the Boiling Pot
and gripped Ramsay as the current bore
him past. Both men emerged alive and
unharmed, thus ending happily a true
story of magnificent courage and luck. Or
so the story runs. I wish that some "Old
Drifter" would confirm it.

One of the earliest tragedies of the
Victoria Falls involving white people was
the result of a canoe being overturned by a
hippo. Two men, two women and a baby
and the usual crew of black paddlers
struggled in the swift stream above the
Falls. Two of the white visitors were

drowned, but the baby was rescued by a
paddler and restored to the mother. It is
satisfactory to be able to record that the
native was pensioned for life.

Mysterious indeed was the discovery of
the body of a young man many years ago.
There is a path leading to the aptly-named
Knife Edge which only those with steady
heads should take. Below this path the
body was found, in a sitting position on a
ledge of rock. It was thought the man had
fallen through the deceptive undergrowth
and bush, and had injured his spine. In his
pockets were fifteen half-sovereigns and a
railway ticket to Elisabethville in the
Belgian Congo. But from that day to this
his identity has never been established.

Among the lucky escapes at the Falls one
must not forget the diner-out, an elderly
man, who tried to follow the path from the
bridge to the Livingstone Road one dark
night. He lost his way, fell over the edge,
and was caught by a tree before he had
time to hurt himself seriously. Someone

heard his shouts at daybreak and he was
rescued, moaning over the loss of his false
teeth and a bottle of whisky.

A naval seaman, on leave from the Africa
Squadron between the wars was not so
fortunate. During the dry season the Falls
dwindle away and from a gigantic series
of breaking waves they become a few thin
streams. The doomed sailor set out one
exceptionally dry year to cross the very
edge of the Falls to Livingstone Island. He
reckoned without the force of those
mighty waters; for streams which appear
as trickles at a distance are dangerous
enough when you slip into them. The
sailor put his weight on a shifting stone
and was instantly lost. They found his
body just below the surface within a foot
of the great drop, wedged between rocks.

Only once have the Victoria Falls been
featured in the newspapers of the world as
the scene of a murder. That was in July
1930, when Mrs. Una Kirby of Pretoria

was attacked by a native and slipped over
the edge in the struggle that followed.

Native troops were summoned
immediately Mrs. Kirby's companion
reported the crime, and an impassable
cordon was thrown round the area. A
strong guard was placed on the Victoria
Falls Bridge. Late that night a native
wearing torn, blood-stained clothing tried
to break through the cordon at the bridge;
and in his effort to escape arrest, he fell
over the cliff. Two hundred feet down a
rock stopped his progress. Corporal
Jordan of the Northern Rhodesia Police
was lowered over the edge, and brought
the native back to safety. But the man,
who was undoubtedly the murderer, died
on the way to hospital.

Attempts to recover the body of Mrs.
Kirby went on for weeks, and were finally
successful. After a long search by land
and air the body was located with the aid
of powerful field glasses. Then three
brave men were lowered in a specially

constructed cage to the base of the Falls.
Drenched in spray during the forty-
minutes' descent, they reached the body
and were hauled slowly back to the
summit with their burden.

Thousands of South African visitors to the
Victoria Falls read with regret of the death
in 1937 of Percy M. Clark, that famous
"Old Drifter" who sold native curios and
photographs in picturesque huts beside the
Zambesi. Percy Clark was one of those
men whose deaths have been prematurely
reported. It was in 1904 that this news
reached Bulawayo as a result of a queer
escapade.

Clark, accompanied by an engineer named
Fox, decided to explore the gorge while
the Victoria Falls bridge was being con-
structed. They were actually the first to
reach the bottom from the southern bank.
There they separated. Clark, exhausted by
climbing, spent the night in the gorge.
Fox, climbing alone, fell a hundred feet,
broke his fall on a tree, and landed on a

ledge of rock. A rescue party brought him
up with the aid of a crane. In the
meantime Clark had been reported dead.
He climbed back to safety and found that
his friends had opened a bottle of whisky
to mourn his loss.

Tales of heroism you hear at the Falls are
true. One day two natives were wrecked
in their canoe on an islet near the Eastern
Cataract. The river was in full flood, and
it seemed that they were hopelessly
marooned and destined to die of
starvation. However, Mr. Pare and
Trooper Gerald Martin of the police
stripped and set off in a large canoe with
five native paddlers. It was a ten to one
chance, but Pare's handling of the canoe
brought it off and they returned safely
with the castaways. Pare and Martin were
awarded the British Empire Medal for this
feat, and the five native paddlers shared a
handsome sum subscribed by the people
of Livingstone.

Great rescues were carried out during
World War II, when high-spirited but too
daring young men, stationed in Rhodesia
for air training, attempted too much. One
air cadet named Stanton tried to scale the
four hundred and fifty foot precipice
above the Boiling Pot. After climbing
three hundred feet he found that he could
not move in any direction, and there he
remained for an hour before he was seen
from the bridge.

Sergeants Pywell and Wordsworth of the
police went to the rescue. Wordsworth
tried to reach Stanton with a breeches-
buoy and a rope ladder, but the ladder was
too short. Pywell then went down in the
breeches-buoy with a longer ladder. He
was held up when the rope caught in a
bush, but freed the ladder after a long
struggle. When he had reached the limit of
the rope, Pywell found that he was still
thirty feet away from Stanton. Pywell then
tried to swing the rope ladder across to

Stanton, like a trapeze artist; but every
attempt fell short.

By this time the bridge was crowded with
anxious spectators. They saw Stanton
clinging to the cliff for his life; and they
watched Pywell suspended about three
hundred feet above the Boiling Pot, trying
again and again to reach Stanton. Here
was drama indeed, with the roar of the
Victoria Falls providing grim music, the
spray blowing across in gusts like a vivid
stage effect, and the green precipice as
backdrop.

Then a chill ran through the crowd. Men
clutched the railing and many prayers
were said when they saw Pywell climb
out of the security of the breeches-buoy
on to the rope ladder. With magnificent
courage this sergeant of police turned
himself into a human pendulum, swinging
himself towards Stanton. At last Pywell
made contact, put Stanton into the
breeches-buoy and saw him hauled up the
cliff. Only then did Pywell return to

safety. Never was the bronze medal of the
Royal Humane Society more richly
deserved.

One night in February 1955 a Mr. Alan
Perry went out with a party from the hotel
to see the lunar rainbow over the Eastern
Cataract. That night Perry survived a
longer and more painful ordeal, I think,
than any other Victoria Falls accident
victim.

He was talking to his companions at the
edge of the cliff when suddenly he found
himself in mid-air. To this day Perry does
not know whether he slipped or lost his
sense of balance. He struck a tree or bush
about one hundred and fifty feet down and
broke his fall. The impact was so severe,
however, that he also broke all his ribs
down one side.

Perry, an ex-soldier and racing motorist,
kept his nerve even in that ghastly
situation. Looking down, he saw the river
hundreds of feet below. He knew that he

must find a more secure perch. So in spite
of intense pain and shock he managed to
claw his way up about twelve feet to a
narrow ledge. He realised that he might
faint; however, he was able to use his
scarf to tie himself to a tree stump.
Torches and car headlamps played on the
cliff, but only at dawn was Perry able to
signal to his rescuers and show them that
he had not fallen into the gorge.

The rescuers on this occasion were Dr. R.
E. Dunn, a government medical officer,
and Mr. J. V. Tebbitt, a game ranger.
They climbed down the precipice boldly
with a rope ladder, ropes and a stretcher.
It was a perilous manoeuvre in every way.
One of the large stones dislodged by the
stretcher hit Perry on the head; all the
others passed over him. Then the rescuers
got to their man, Dunn injected morphia,
and they strapped him into the stretcher.
Perry had been in danger for ten hours
when he was hauled slowly to the top of

the cliff. In ten hours he had aged ten
years.

"Mosi-oa-Tunya!" What tales are in your
mighty voice. Will that thunder ever be
stilled? The natives say that three hundred
years ago the Falls were in a different
place. Air photographs show two lines of
weakness radiating from the great cleft in
the Western Cataract. This erosion
suggests that sometime in the future the
present line of the Falls will be altered.
Fifty or a hundred years hence South
Africa may no longer draw travellers from
the farthest corners of the earth to
experience the wonder that Livingstone
felt as he stared awe- struck at the torrent
which he named in honour of his Queen.

Chapter 13

Sarie Marais

O bring my terug na die ou Transvaal,

Daar waar my Sarie woon,

Daar onder in die mielies by the groen

doringboom,
Daar woon my Sarie Marais.

IN MY Africana collection there is an early
copy of that famous song, presented to me
by Mr. Justice N. J. de Wet, at one time
Officer Administering the Union
Government. He told me the true story of
Sarie Marais.

Some regard the heroine of the song as a
mysterious figure. Certainly the identity
of Sarie Marais once aroused a vigorous
controversy in South Africa. You may be
surprised to hear that Sarie Marais was a
real woman, but there is no doubt about
that. I hope that I shall not stir up any
further argument now by putting the facts
before you.

One school of thought claimed a Mr. J. P.
Toerien, born in Paarl in 1859, as the
author of the words, and it was said that
his wife, Susara Margaretha Mare
composed the song. Toerien was a fervent
Afrikaans pioneer, a frequent contributor
of verse to the first Afrikaans magazines,
which were published in Paarl. His pen
name was Jepete. He was musical, and
among his efforts was an attempt to write
a South African national anthem.

Toerien settled in Pretoria and earned his
living as a journalist. There he met his
wife, and obviously she inspired a great
deal of his later poetry, as her name

occurs again and again. It was claimed
that Toerien wrote "Sarie Marais" in her
honour. The printer is supposed to have
altered the spelling of Mare to Marais by
mistake. According to the Toerien
claimants, the song was written before the
South African War.

Toerien died in 1920, but Mrs. Toerien
lived to the age of seventy-three, and died
in 1939 in Bloemfontein. Two years
before her death a newspaper sent a
journalist to ask her whether she was the
original Sarie Marais of the song. It is said
that Mrs. Toerien first admitted that she
was, but published a strong denial soon -
afterwards. She was a modest, religious
woman who disliked personal publicity.
When she died, some newspapers describ-
ed her as the woman who inspired the
song. She had sixteen children, and those
who are still alive are convinced that their
mother was the original Sarie Marais.
Toerien' s manuscript with the first

version of the song is supposed to have
perished in a fire.

The story of Sarie Marais which I accept
begins in 1902, when Mrs. Ella de Wet
was anxious to join her husband in the
field. De Wet was on the staff of General
Louis Botha, then operating in 'Natal. It is
pleasant to find evidence of little wartime
courtesies long ago. Lord Kitchener
passed Mrs. de Wet through the lines so
that she could join her husband. They
spent three weeks together on a farm in
the Vryheid district. There was a piano,
and Mrs. de Wet played the
accompaniments at the evening singsongs.
There the Sarie Marais song was born.

Before that, the men of the commandos
had been singing "Ella Rhee", an
American negro song of the Civil War
period.

Sweet Ella Rhee, so dear to me,

Is lost for evermore

Her home was down in Tennessee

Before the cruel war.

"Ella Rhee", also known as "Carry me
back to Tennessee", was composed by
Septimus Winner. Mrs. de Wet based the
music of the 1902 version of Sarie Marais
on "Ella Rhee". She found it in an
American album (for there were few
Afrikaans songs at that period), and made
no claim to originality in the music.

At first not only the music but also the
words bore some resemblance to "Ella
Rhee". Two verses were hammered out by
the happy party round the farm-house
piano, everyone making suggestions. The
original verses ran as follows:

My Sarie Mare is so ver van my hart,

Om haar nooit weer te sien,

Sy het in die wyk van die Mooi Rivier

gewoon,
Voordat die oorlog begin.
O neem my terug na die ou Transvaal,
Daar waar my Sarie woon.

Daar onder in die mielies by die groen

doring boom,
Daar woon my Sarie Mare.

You have noted the spelling Sarie Mare.
The company round the piano selected the
name of the mother of a beloved veld-
prediker, the Rev. Paul Nel, as the heroine
of the song.

So the original Sarie Marais was the Sarie
Mare of Uitenhage who married Louis
Jacobus Nel of the farm Welgegund,
Natal. She had made the long and
adventurous trek from Uitenhage with her
brother Paul to visit her uncle, Oom
Wynand Mare, near Greytown. And when
a young farmer Louis Jacobus Nel rode
over to call, they fell in love at once and
became engaged a few weeks later. Sarie
was seventeen when they were married.

Owing to the distance they had dispensed
with the traditional ouersvra ritual, so
now they set off by ox-wagon for
Uitenhage to receive the parental blessing.

That was in the late eighteen-fifties, but
already a photographer had started a
business in Pietermaritzburg, and there is
a treasured photograph in the family
album of Sarie in her wedding-dress.

After the visit to the Cape, which lasted a
full year in those leisurely days, they
settled on the Nel farm. Sarie died in 1877
at the age of thirty-seven, at the birth of
her eleventh child. She was buried on
Welgegund. Her son Paul became
minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at
Jeppestown, Johannesburg, and many of
the men of General Louis Botha's forces
belonged to this congregation. According
to Mrs. Janie A. Malherbe, a grand-
daughter of Sarie Mare Nel, the Rev. Paul
Nel was the first Voortrekker descendant
to become a minister. During the South
African War he was in great demand
round the camp fires of the commandos.
He talked to the men of the early days of
Natal, stories he had heard from his

father; and he told them of his mother
Sarie Mare, her journey and her romance.

Such was the heroine of the song. "I am
not at all certain how far the words were
my wife's, and how far they were made
up by the members of General Botha's
staff," Mr. Justice de Wet wrote to me.
"The men who could throw light on this
subject - Louis Esselen, Dick van Velden
and others - have all passed away. The
song was the product of the war."

Mr. Justice de Wet became Minister of
Justice in the Union Cabinet in 1913,
which meant spending part of the winter
in Cape Town. Mrs. de Wet told her
friends long afterwards that her exile at
the Cape aroused her longings for the
Transvaal and reminded her of the song.
She set to work on an improved version of
"Sarie Mare". One day in 1915, when
Professor Leo Fouche was staying with
the De Wets at Groote Schuur Avenue,
she sang and played it to him. (Fouche
was professor of history at Witwatersrand

University, but he was also interested in
music.) She invited Fouche's criticism,
and he made a number of suggestions. By
this time the music differed considerably
from "Ella Rhee". The song had lost some
of its pathos; in fact, it was a merry effort.
Americans failed to detect its "Ella Rhee"
descent.

The process of polishing the song and
music went on for years. Miss Ellaline
Roos supplied a third verse, based on part
of another song called "Upington se
Strand", and running as follows:

Ek was so bang dat die kakies my sou
vang

En ver oor die see wegstuur

Toe vlug ek na die kant van die

Upington se strand,
Daar onder langs die Groot Rivier.

Up to this time the song was not widely
known. Only a few copies were available,
hand-written by Mrs. de Wet and given to
a few close friends. These copies, if they

still exist, would be valuable pieces of
Africana today.

General Smuts persuaded Mrs. de Wet to
publish the song, and the first sheets
appeared with the music in 1920, bearing
the imprint of Darter's, Cape Town. The
title was Sarie Mare (not Marais). Other
firms published imitations, and the title
became Sarie Marais.

Mrs. de Wet never liked the verse which
began: "Ek was so bang dat die kakies sal
my vang. " It suggested a timid character.
In the second edition, therefore, she
altered it, as follows:

O altyd was sy bang dat die kakies my

sou vang
En ver oor die groot vlei stuur,
Of sit my in 'n skip en stuur vir my 'n

trip,

Ver van die Mooi-rivier.

This edition also included a final verse,
ending on a happy note:

Verlossing het gekom en huis-toe gaan

was daar,
Terug na die ou Transvaal
My liefling persoon sal seker ook daar

syn

Om my met 'n kits te onthaal.

When you sum up all the changes in
words and music, "Sarie Marais" is
sufficiently different to be regarded as a
South African product. Thousands look
upon it as the richest jewel in our own
treasury of song.

Once, and only once that I can remember,
"Sarie Marais" was attacked by an
Afrikaans music-critic in Cape Town.
"Sarie Marais is not our own," he declared
in a newspaper article. "There are people
who make out that she is our own. They
are the people who delight in showing the
world what South Africa can produce in
the way of music. They are doing us more
harm than good. Our people have more
and better songs than "Sarie Marais'. That
this song has captured the great bulk of

our people and still fascinates them today
is not to be doubted, but I am not going to
test the musical taste of our people by that
majority. "Sarie Marais' has served her
time. I am asking my readers to do
everything in their power to kill "Sarie
Marais'. She must be murdered. "

I discussed this outburst with several
musicians, including the late Mr. William
J. Pickerill, then musical director of the
Cape Town Orchestra. Pickerill was an
admirer of "Sarie Marais". He considered
it superior to most of the piekniek liedjies.
And he remarked wisely: "Nothing is
more likely to give a song a long life than
attempts to kill it." Pickerill also
explained to me that there were only
twelve semi-tones in the music; thus it
would be remarkable if the song did not
have points of similarity to other songs.

The man who denounced Sarie was a
good musician, but he was a poor
psychologist. Pickerill was right.
However, "Sarie Marais" was not an

instantaneous success when the first
music sheets were printed in 1920. The
public response was slow, and between
1920 and 1937 only four thousand copies
of Mrs. de Wet's version were sold. I
believe that the turning point came when
controversy over the authorship revealed
the fact that Sarie Marais was no mythical
figure but a real personality.

Incidentally, the Susara Margaretha Mare
(Mrs. Toerien), whose name I have
mentioned, was a distant relative of Sarie
Mare of Uitenhage. If you are still
wondering why I am so emphatic in
rejecting the claims made on behalf of the
Toeriens, please study Mrs. Toerien' s
own disclaimer. Mrs. Janie Malherbe
looked it up in the files of the
Bloemfontein "Volksblad". Here is a
translation: "I am not that Sarie. I do not
like the song and my husband never wrote
it. If he had done so I would have known
about it, as he showed me everything he
ever wrote."

One point which still mystifies me a little
was an incident during the visit of the
Steele-Payne Bellringers to Graaff-Reinet
in 1918. (I suppose only middle-aged and
older readers will remember this famous
company of musicians who toured South
Africa. for so many years.) A
schoolmaster approached Claude Steele,
gave him a book of school songs, and
requested him to play one of the songs at
the next show. It was "Sarie Marais".
Claude Steele adapted it for the bells, and
it was a great success. Evidently some
unknown and forgotten music-lover
produced a version which found its way
into print some time before Mrs. de Wet's
printed version. Mrs. de Wet' s position as
the original composer (aided by friends
during and after the South African War)
remains secure.

Mrs. de Wet was a good pianist. Apart
from her most famous achievement she
composed words and music for the
Afrikaans songs "Moederlief ', "Die Vaal

Hare en Bloue Oe" and "Het Jy Vergeet? They got back all right, but without the

yacht.

"Sarie Marais" has been translated into
English, French and Italian, and towards
the end of World War II it was reported
that a Russian version had been prepared
for the army! (O bring me back to old
Moscow.)

Perhaps the song still touches the deepest
human feelings when the singers are far
from South Africa. At home it is a jolly
dance tune. In exile, "Sarie Marais" is the
very essence of the longing which a
homesick South African knows when he
thinks of the land of his birth.

I know an Afrikaner who made a
memorable voyage in a small yacht from
Table Bay to Panama. He named her Sarie
Marais (how well I remember that
ceremony) and in metal letters under her
counter appeared the stirring words:
"Bring ons terug na die ou Transvaal."

Chapter 14

Earthquake Feeling

Earthquakes rarely come my way.
For years it fell to my lot to rush out and
report fires and floods, shattered trains,
shipwrecks and crashed aircraft, accidents
caused by man and the less predictable
convulsions of Nature. I have felt
earthquake shocks in Burma and Egypt;
but when I had to write an earthquake
story in Cape Town, it usually meant no
more than a visit to the seismograph at the
university.

The line on this seismograph was seldom
absolutely "flat", for this sensitive
instrument recorded the breaking of the
seas on the Cape beaches. But when I
went to the university with news of a
serious Japanese earthquake, there were
jagged sweeps up and down the paper.

If you are afraid of earthquakes, South
Africa is one of the safest areas on the
uneasy crust of this earth. Only keep out
of Zululand. You may be surprised to
learn that South Africa feels an
earthquake of the fifth degree, or higher,
at the rate of one a year. And in 1932
there was a tenth degree earthquake on the
sea-floor close to Zululand, causing
widespread alarm and damage.

Earthquakes fall into twelve classes,
starting with imperceptible 'quakes which
can be recorded only by instruments, and
ending with major catastrophes in which
every human structure is destroyed. India
had one in which three hundred thousand
lives were lost. I have been through the

South African records without discovering
a single death caused by an earthquake.
This is remarkable when you consider that
the ninth degree shocks experienced in
Zululand are classed as "highly destruc-
tive". Van Riebeeck had no 'quakes to
enter in his diary, but he did mention his
pleasure in their absence. He had seen
enough devastation in the East Indies.
Simon van der Stel, in 1695, gave the first
recorded description of a South African
earthquake. This was in Cape Town, and
he wrote: "In the evening of September 4,
between seven and eight, weather clear
and calm, without a breath of wind, a
heavy earthquake was felt, which created
a loud noise in the foundations of the
earth, as if it were a passing roll of
thunder. It lasted so long that one hundred
might have been counted. The natives
declared that they had never before heard
or felt anything of the kind."

Of course the Cape Town 'quake that
everyone has read about was the 1809

shock when the soldiers of the garrison
hurried out of their barracks "naked and
tumbling over each other in their haste".
They remembered their discipline on the
Parade and formed up in two ranks, but
still with hardly a kilt or breeches among
the lot of them.

William Burchell the botanist, the most
pleasant and intelligent Cape traveller of
his day, gave an account of that 'quake.
He described the consternation, people
abandoning their houses and pitching
tents on the squares and in gardens.
"Some persons lived in that manner for
more than a fortnight, impressed with the
idea that the end of the world had come,"
Burchell wrote. "Many attended divine
service in the churches and meeting-
houses for the first time in their lives, and
all business was neglected for a few
days."

Burchell was in Cape Town when another
'quake was felt two years later. The
nerves of the people of Cape Town were

still on edge. "I have known a whole
party, in the midst of their conviviality, to
fly precipitately out of the house upon one
of the guests happening in a convivial
mood to dance across a floor overhead
and cause it to shake," Burchell remarked.
"There were two shocks on a fine day in
the forenoon. The first was like the report
of a cannon and the second like the
loudest peal of thunder. In the fright that
ensued I believe that every inhabitant of
Cape Town who could move rushed out
of the houses." Some days later there was
another shock and a hollow rumbling
sound like a smothered howling passed
underfoot with a strong trembling of the
earth.

In a "Government Gazette" dated
December 4, 1835, I found details of an
early attempt to make a scientific study of
earthquakes. There had been a mild shock
in Cape Town and the neighbourhood
during the night of the previous
November 11. Out at the observatory Sir

Thomas Maclear and others were working
all night; they felt nothing, but heard a
sound like a cannon. The "Gazette"
published this advertisement: "Any
gentlemen, country agents and others,
who can give any information relative to
the late 'quake are asked to communicate
with the committee of the South African
Scientific and Literary Institute. J. C.
Close, honorary secretary."

All through last century you find records
of mild shocks in Cape Town and the
platteland. Durban was shaken to its
foundations in 1860, and there was a
sound (well-known to 'quake observers)
like heavy wagons passing quickly along
a hard road. Ten years later people living
near the Table Bay waterfront were
staggered when they saw the water rise
four feet in ten minutes, only to fall again
suddenly. This event was repeated fifteen
minutes later. It was due to an upheaval of
the ocean bed, where many of the world' s
earthquakes originate. People wrote to the

newspapers recalling that a similar
phenomenon had occurred a quarter of a
century earlier; and on that occasion so
many fish were flung on shore that
convicts working at the Amsterdam
Battery had to spend all their time
collecting and burying fish.

Shortly before midnight on May 10, 1885
there was a severe earthquake shock in
Cape Town. A ship loaded with
gunpowder was at anchor in Table Bay,
and many people thought she had blown
up. Caledon, Paarl and Wellington were
all shaken.

Port Shepstone, which lies in the mild
danger area of South Africa, experienced
a 'quake in 1894 which destroyed the
German Lutheran Church. About a year
later there was a mild shock in Durban,
and one amusing sidelight is on record.
Hundreds of people living on the Berea
looked under their beds, imagining that
the movement had been caused by an
intruder.

It may have been pure coincidence, but
the whole of Namaqualand felt a severe
earthquake on the very day, December 28,
1908, that the seaport of Messina in Sicily
was destroyed. Nearly one hundred
thousand people died in Sicily that day;
forty villages were wiped out; within
seven thousand square miles few
buildings remained standing. Certainly a
major catastrophe, force twelve on the
scale. But I doubt whether it reached more
than force five in Namaqualand, the point
where most sleepers are aroused, loose
objects fall over, and furniture moves.

One of the heaviest earth tremors ever
recorded in the Union occurred on
February 20, 1912, and every part of the
country felt it. Scientists were not as
skilled in tracing origins of shocks as they
are today, but the astronomers thought the
"epicentre" was somewhere in the
Kalahari. Later they decided it was at
Koffiefontein, O.F.S., where the damage
was greatest. (All the buildings on the

farm Steenkraal were razed.) Buildings
cracked at Vryburg, Kimberley rocked.
Thousands of tons of loose ground round
the Kimberley mine fell into the crater,
raising alarming clouds of dust.
Watercourses in the district were diverted,
some springs dried up, and a few loosely -
built farmhouses collapsed. Mr. H. E.
Wood, the astronomer, watched his
seismographs in Johannesburg and saw
the pin of one instrument jerked out of
place by the violence of the shock. "The
tremor went on so long that I could hardly
realise that it was an earthquake," Mr.
Wood declared. "It was outside my
experience of earthquakes. It seemed as
though people were walking about over
my head."

Just over forty years ago the Union
Government appointed a Witwatersrand
Earth Tremors Committee composed of
Mr. Robert Kotze, Mr. R. T. A. Innes (the
Union Astronomer) and Mr. D.
Wilkinson, a mining engineer. The object

was to discover the cause of the shocks
which had been causing some alarm on
the Rand for the past seven or eight years.
Some people imagined that the earth
would open and swallow them up. Many
jerry-built houses had been damaged. In
one district where tremors often occurred,
people had packed up and left.

The committee decided that "a sufficient
and sole cause" of these shocks lay in the
mining that had taken place. They were
not proper earthquakes, but man-made
tremors. Pillars were left in old workings,
and when these collapsed the tremors
were felt. Nowadays the mines fill in with
sand, or some other more effective
packing.

Johannesburg still notices hundreds of
these shocks every year, but only the
newcomer bothers about them. Flat-
dwellers living high up in the centre of the
city often say that they feel the buildings
"swaying" in a tremor. Imagination,
however, plays a part here. Though a

heavy tremor may be unpleasant while it
lasts, the experts agree that there is no
danger of the damage which follows a real
earthquake.

Tremor freaks do sometimes occur along
the Rand. I heard of a man who was
trapped in the bathroom of an eighth floor
flat until a locksmith released him.
Window panes break, lamps splinter and
deep cracks appear in gardens. During a
very severe tremor in 1944, hundreds of
plate-glass shop-windows were shattered
and a chimney-stack fell.

I told you to keep out of Zululand if you
dislike earthquakes. And indeed the
'quake that occurred there on the last day
of 1932 must have remained as a
disturbing memory in the minds of all
who went through the full shock. Two
government geologists, Dr. L. J. Krige
and Dr. F. A. Venter, were sent to
Zululand to study the effects, and so there
is a reliable report of the phenomenon.
The epicentre, as I said, was on the sea-

floor; the geologists fixed it twenty-five
miles to the east of Cape St. Lucia. A total
area of about three hundred thousand
square miles was shaken. Johannesburg
felt it distinctly three hundred miles away,
and it was also observed at Koster in the
Western Transvaal. On the coast, the
effects were noted all the way from Port
Shepstone to the Portuguese border.

No doubt there would have been more
serious damage, and possibly loss of life,
if the St. Lucia area had been densely
populated. As it was, the lonely coastal
dunes seemed to have absorbed most of
the shock and protected the few isolated
people living near the shore. This was the
"ninth degree" area, but all that happened
along the remote and rocky seashore was
the disturbance of pebbles. Black muddy
fountains were seen at certain points near
the shore, with lumps of black clay
shooting into the air; and there was a
sound like underground thunder.

On the dunes nearly four hundred feet
above sea level stood the iron tower of the
Cape St. Lucia lighthouse. One keeper,
Murphy, appointed when it was built in
1905, served there continuously, apart
from spells of leave, for nearly thirty
years. At the time of the earthquake the
only means of transport to the lighthouse
was the ox-wagon. It is wild country,
where hippos still send their deep,
booming calls over the lagoons, and
crocodiles lurk in the marshes.

Murphy made the lighthouse garden the
prettiest along the whole coast, a replica
of an old English coastguard station.
Among the Zulus he gained a tremendous
reputation both as a judge in disputes and
as a doctor. But it was a quiet life for
Murphy and his wife, and the earthquake
must have formed the most sensational
incident of his long career.

When the earthquake came the tower
shook violently, gas cylinders were
pitched from their casings and began

leaking, lamp and lenses were thrown out
of position, and all the mechanism
stopped. Tools fell from benches and
tables, water-tanks were damaged, long
fissures appeared in the earth. Murphy
had all day to repair the damage, but he
was hampered by further shocks. Often he
thought the iron tower would not stand the
strain. Nevertheless, when evening came
the St. Lucia light was burning bravely.

Murphy's wooden frame-house stood half
a mile from the shore. Mrs. Murphy
reported that the shock had thrown her off
the sofa, and that all the crockery was
smashed. Otherwise their home was safe,
cushioned by the thick buffer of sand.

Elsewhere in Zululand white people were
frightened and natives were sure that the
end of the world had come. One fissure in
the earth ran for two miles, cracked a
railway embankment near Mtubatuba, and
derailed a train. At a sugar mill near the
Umfolosi river columns of water like
geysers shot into the air. Many walls were

cracked and some houses had to be
abandoned. Water in the Nyalazi river
seemed to be boiling. Trees and shrubs
bent for three minutes as though they
were feeling the force of a hurricane.
Goods fell from the shelves of stores.
Water tanks burst.

The motor vessel Gujarat, which was
passing the Tugela river mouth at the time
of the 'quake, shook violently for two
minutes. Her master reported that the sea
appeared to be trembling. Ships in Durban
harbour also felt the shock and strained at
their moorings.

Church bells tolled in Greytown though
no one touched the ropes. Clocks stopped,
lamps and birdcages swung, tiles were
shaken loose, stationary motor-cars and
railway trucks rocked on their wheels.
Pumpkins rolled off roofs. Every house in
Vryheid rattled, but the men working in
the coal-mine were unaware that anything
had happened. Earthquake shocks are
always weaker underground.

Machadodorp in the Eastern Transvaal
has a hot radio-active sulphur spring.
During the 'quake the flow of water
increased and the temperature rose. The
ground heaved at Newcastle in Natal,
while pictures fell from the walls in
Harrismith.

When the authorities in the Union
compared notes afterwards with foreign
observatories they found that the Zululand
earthquake had been recorded as far away
as Finland and California. In other words,
half the earth's surface had been affected.
Ever since that experience people in
Zululand have been advised to build with
strong bricks and mortar. Moreover, they
have been warned that earthquakes must
be expected from time to time; and as
high buildings are dangerous in
earthquake zones, houses of one storey
are recommended.

Experts believe that the eastern half of the
Union appears to be more liable to
earthquake shocks than the western. On

the other hand there are few observers in
the sparsely-populated areas, and so the
opinion may have to be revised.
Namaqualand, as I have said, has known
the earthquake feeling. Prieska shook in
1943, and people reported a loud rumble
in the air as though an express train was
thundering over the mountains. There is a
classic geological fault at Worcester, so
that tremors are felt there occasionally.

Earthquakes and volcanoes work together,
companions of catastrophe. Fortunately
all South Africa's volcanoes are extinct.
There is a prehistoric volcano at Thaba
Nchu in the Orange Free State; volcanic
ash and petrified lava are to be found all
over the mountain. Parts of South West
Africa, too, are clearly volcanic.
Indications have been found at Brukkaros
in the south, Windhoek and Walvis Bay.
Natives of the Herero race give each year
a name, not a number, according to
dramatic events and personalities. Long
ago these names were recorded. Hereros

referred to the year 1843 as "the year of
the rushing sound", and this is believed to
have been the roar of an earthquake.

South West Africa's "earthquake man" is
Mr. E. Zelle, a scientist I always visit
when I am in Windhoek. (He is in charge
of the museum now, and a more interest-
ing lecturer on the country, its people and
animals you could not wish to meet.) Mr.
Zelle kept earthquake records from 1911
to 1938. There were more than two
hundred tremors during that period, most
of them weak. "Seismicity", as it is called,
occurs mainly in the escarpment region,
the belt of activity running through
Windhoek from north to south. The coast,
and the Kalahari region in the east, seem
to be almost immune from shocks.

South Africa's most violent earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions occurred millions
of years ago, before even the types of
animals with which we are familiar had
evolved. Far down in the earth carbon was
crystallised and forced to the surface.

Thus the diamonds were formed. South
Africa is now too solid to yield to these
convulsions. Our immunity from
dangerous 'quakes is due to the stability
given by a granite basement.

Let me add that I have studied many
earthquake reports without finding a
parallel to a personal experience of a
tremor in Cairo. When this mild 'quake
occurred I was in my bathroom at the
Continental-Savoy Hotel, and an electric
chandelier on a chain began swinging
overhead. I could not account for it, and
imagined that I was suffering from a
fainting attack. As I am not liable to such
attacks, and as I remained conscious, I
looked for some other reason and decided
it must be an earthquake. The newspaper
that evening confirmed my guess.

I cannot understand the mentality of
people who spend their lives in zones of
catastrophic earthquakes, and I never wish
to find myself in anything more serious
than I felt in that Cairo bathroom.

Chapter 15
Rumours Never Die

The flying rumours gather 'd as they
roll'd,

Scarce any tale was sooner heard than
told;

And all who told it added something
new,

And all who heard it made enlarge-
ments too.

Pope. "The Temple of Fame."

NO RUMOUR is so incredible that some
people will not believe it. As a journalist I
had to follow many a rumour, sometimes
discovering that "where there is smoke
there is fire". I do not know whether
South Africa is a land peculiarly inclined

to listen eagerly to rumour; but certainly
there have been memorable rumours.

How do rumours start? Why are human
beings so anxious to pass on and discuss
rumours? I can still remember the
dramatic rumours of World War I, when
Cape Town seethed with stories of the
German aeroplane that had been "seen"
over the city at night, and the spies who
had landed at Cape Point from a German
raider.

Seldom is a rumour entirely fantastic.
Those rumours I have mentioned were
possible, if not probable. They happened
to be untrue. People still write to the
newspapers quoting the rumours of long
ago and asking whether the facts have
been established. Some rumours never
die. Certain rumours, like the great
mysteries of crime, demand an
explanation. If none comes, it is like a
detective novel with the last chapter
missing. And the fog of war leaves hidden

the scraps of truth in many a fascinating
rumour.

Comparatively few people are strong
enough to resist the impulse to pass on a
rumour. This impulse exists in ordinary
times, when you have interesting pieces of
confidential news or a good story to tell.
In war-time the impulse often becomes
over powering. You may find yourself
spreading the rumour not only among
friends but among strangers. But you
simply must share it.

This is explained by the fact that reserve
breaks down in times of crisis.
Camaraderie increases far above normal.
The common interest or danger draws
people together, and all find relief in the
discussion of the situation which involves
them all. No wonder war-time rumours
move rapidly.

The actual basis of the desire to pass on
the rumour is held by some psychologists
to be due to the desire to assert one's

superiority by revealing information of
which the other person is ignorant. Other
authorities say that rumour-mongering
merely reveals the desire to be equal, to
share in the excitement all are feeling.

Rumours find unhesitating acceptance
only with people without critical faculties.
The educated man will be cynical, or
slightly cheered, or uneasy as a result of a
rumour. He will not believe it before he
has devised some sort of test. The frame
of mind is negative, somewhere between
belief (which leads to action) and positive
disbelief. Here is a wide field of research
for the "mass observation" experts.

Rumours, false or true, are more often
depressing than cheerful. If there is
definite reason to expect good news, of
course, then an encouraging rumour may
arise. But it is natural that something
which so often has its origin in fear and
ignorance should become an alarming
rumour.

Humanity dislikes suspense. Everyone
tries to peer into the future, seeking easy
explanations of riddles yet unsolved. If
you have a burning question which lacks
an answer, someone is bound to invent the
answer - that mysterious rumour which
causes more eager discussion than the
truth.

India probably circulates more rumours
than any other country in the world. The
"bazaar rumour" of India takes its place in
the country's news services. It cannot be
ignored, for millions are chattering about
it. Solid and reliable newspapers like the
Calcutta "Statesman" print "bazaar
rumours" for what they are worth. I was
surprised to find this procedure, and I
asked a member of the "Statesman" staff
for the reason. "Bazaar rumours
sometimes prove correct, and contain
news well ahead of the official tele-
grams," was the reply. "It has been found
impossible to trace the origins of bazaar
rumours."

While I was in Calcutta in 1936 I saw the
"bazaar rumour" at work, a striking
example. I was strolling down the
crowded Chowringhee when a newsboy
offered my companion an evening
newspaper. This was a thin and
wretchedly edited native sheet, regarded
by the white people as poor value for
money. My careful companion glanced
first at the Stop Press column, then
rejected the newspaper in disgust. "A
bazaar rumour states that King Edward
VIII is about to abdicate," he informed
me. "I am not going to pay one anna for
rubbish like that." Several days later came
the first published news of the events
leading up to the abdication. The bazaars
were right that time.

Wars, earthquakes and other disasters are
responsible for the most numerous and the
most widespread rumours. The rumour
must have "group interest" before it can
spread. The mere process of spreading is
bound to cause distortion, so that one

looks for a grain of truth rather than
complete verification of a sensational
rumour.

Before the days of the cable, Cape Town
stood to arms again and again when
hostile fleets were reported to be
approaching Table Bay to bombard the
town. Signal guns were fired from the
Castle, passed on by the Tygerberg
cannon to Stellenbosch and Paarl. Burgher
commandos saddled and rode for Cape
Town to reinforce the defenders.

Not long ago I was offered a copy of a
proclamation Major General David Baird
issued as Acting Governor shortly after
the Second British Occupation of the
Cape. (I collect rumours, but £15 for a
single sheet printed at the Castle in 1806
was too much for me.) Baird pointed out
that some "ill-advised and malicious
persons" had spread false reports about
the arrival of an enemy fleet. One man
had not only repeated the rumour in
Baird' s presence, but had stated that he

had seen the hostile fleet at Saldanha Bay
and had spoken to some of the officers.

Baird warned the public that in future
anyone convicted of spreading or
repeating false rumours would suffer
death, or such other punishment as the
general court martial might award. And he
added: "Cornells Maas, the person who in
such a wanton and wicked manner gave
the false information above mentioned, is
to be flogged round the town in the most
public and exemplary manner, tomorrow
at noon, by the common executioner, and
will afterwards be transported out of the
colony."

I knew a police officer in South West
Africa in the nineteen-twenties who was
given the task of tracing rumours of a
serious rebellion among the Hereros.
Magistrates had reported that their
districts in the north were seething with
unrest.

The officer first interviewed the district
surgeon of Otjiwarongo, a German doctor
who had been through the Herero war
early in the century. The doctor stated that
he knew all the signs, and that the Hereros
were on the point of rising. Farther north,
in Outjo, the farmers had gathered in the
village and were demanding troops and
military aircraft. Many white families
were on the road, making for centres
where they would find some protection.
But no one could give the officer definite
information.

At last the officer found an old English
woman, member of a well-known family,
living in poverty on a lonely farm. She
gave him information which led to the
heart of the matter. It came out that a
German, who had a native mistress, had
deserted her and gone to Angola, leaving
a destitute family. The embittered woman
made all sorts of threats, and sent a
messenger to the German telling him to
return at once or he would be killed by her

relatives. Some white farmer heard of this,
and cross-examined the messenger. This
native, possibly to save his face, or for
some other reason of his own, declared
that the Hereros were planning a revolt.
The farmers immediately sent a runner to
the nearest magistrate with a warning.
Very soon the whole northern territory
was in a state of alarm. Fortunately the
government held its hand, the police
officer exploded the rumour, and within a
few days everything was normal.

Psychologists declare that the most
promising field in which to spread a
rumour is one in which the population is
suffering from fear. It is easy to
understand the feelings of people living in
isolation on a frontier, among natives who
have, within living memory, attacked and
massacred the white settlers. But it is far
more remarkable to discover a similar
panic in the old, settled, peaceful Cape
districts of a century ago.

According to rumours in the platteland in
1851, the coloured people had organised a
rebellion. On a certain day all the white
males in the country would be killed. So
persistent were the rumours that the
government offered a reward of one
thousand pounds for information which
would secure the conviction of the leaders
of the conspiracy. Moreover, an official
commission was sent into the country to
investigate the alarming reports which
magistrates and others were sending to
Cape Town.

Even in D' Urban village (now
Durbanville), only a few hours from Cape
Town by post-coach, the tension was so
great that most of the white families slept
in one house every night while the men
went out on patrol. Farther away from
town the precautions were more stringent.
About two hundred people assembled in
an armed camp on the farm of Field
Cornet Lochner in the Malmesbury
district. Every farmer carried a gun.

Wellington residents cloaked their
defence measures by arranging a "raffle"
for clothing; but the competitors had to
bring their rifles and shoot for the prizes.
It was said that the convicts at work on
Bain's Kloof were to be released to take
part in the revolution, and so Wellington
made feverish preparations. The rumours
spread as far afield as Riversdale in the
east and Clanwilliam and the Hantam in
the north. Everywhere the farmers laid in
stocks of gunpowder and bullets.

Some farmers dismissed their coloured
labourers in the midst of the harvest and
engaged armed white men at higher
wages. Many families abandoned their
farm homesteads at night and camped in a
different part of the farm so that they
could not be located easily on the night of
the rising. Various dates were given for
the massacre. Some said there would be a
simultaneous attack during the harvest,
when the largest numbers of coloured
people were at work on the farms. Others

believed the crisis would come on
December 1, anniversary of the abolition
of slavery. Finally there were many who
feared bloodshed on Christmas Day.

Thus magistrates in the affected areas
received one deputation after another, and
every field cornet wrote in with alarming
rumours. It was suggested in Worcester
that a census should be taken of all
faithful men, white and coloured, over the
age of sixteen and able to carry arms, and
that all suitable riding horses, saddles,
bridles, guns and ammunition should be
listed. A house to house search of the
whole coloured population was another
scheme put forward.

Among the coloured people there was also
a strong sense of impending danger. They
were influenced by a rumour that a
deputation of farmers had gone to Cape
Town to appeal for the restoration of
slavery. Not many coloured men owned
firearms, but large numbers lashed their
scythe blades to poles.

Anxiety in Cape Town may be gauged
from a speech made by the Attorney
General at a Legislative Council meeting
on November 10 that year. "I do not think
I am in much danger sitting in the shadow
of Table Mountain, and I am ready to take
my chance," announced the Attorney
General. "Nevertheless, I should incur a
grave moral responsibility if I did
anything to influence the ignorant
coloured people, or lead a frightened or
irritated farmer to shoot someone dead.
The first shot must be followed by a
thousand others."

This was the period of the Eighth Kaffir
War (1850-53), when large numbers of
Hottentots in the Eastern Province joined
the Kaffirs against the British forces.
Hottentot levies were employed by the
British, and the first of these troops were
returning to the Western Province and
Clanwilliam late in 1851, their term of
service having expired. No doubt these
men contributed towards the general

uneasiness. Freed from discipline, elated
by their military achievements, and with
money to spend in the canteens, the
Hottentot ex-soldiers caused disturbances
as they passed through the countryside
bound for their homes.

It was said that the rebellious Hottentots
on the frontier had approached the men of
their own race in British uniform and had
tried to seduce them. The idea had been
sown that the Hottentots were an
oppressed race, inheritors of the soil yet
owning no land. Such was the drunken
gossip of the coloured canteens, and it
served to strengthen the rumours. Small
wonder an atmosphere of suspicion and
jealousy was created. "The farmers have a
smouldering fear of the coloured classes,"
ran one official report. "Among the
coloured people there is a universal desire
to recover their land. They also suspect a
revival of slavery or that they will be
oppressed by vagrant laws."

Vagrancy had become a menace in parts
of the Cape Colony at that time, and the
government was preparing to take steps
against squatters on Crown land. These
people, some white, mainly coloured,
lived in the mountains and other
inaccessible places. Mr. Matthew Blake, a
Caledon farmer, reported that while
travelling in the Onder Bokkeveld he had
encountered six hundred coloured
squatters. Many were bad characters,
living by stock theft. Mr. Charles Piers,
the Tulbagh magistrate, visited the Koue
Bokkeveld, finding many white and
coloured people on Crown land without
title. They lived in filth, under rocks and
in huts of sugar bush. He discovered one
or two lepers among them. Few worked
on farms. Many stole sheep. "I do not
think I ever saw a country which
presented greater facilities for the
concealment of thieves and their spoil,"
summed up Mr. Piers.

It looked like an explosive situation -
robbers in the mountains ready to join the
rebellious coloured people on the plains.
No doubt the three magistrates acting as
members of the official commission must
have wondered what they would find
when they set off by Cape cart into the
tense platteland.

Fifteen days later they drove back to Cape
Town and reported that all rumours were
groundless. They had taken evidence at
D'Urban village, Malmesbury, Worcester,
Groene Kloof, Tulbagh, Wellington, Paarl
and Stellenbosch. Everywhere they had
found a state of alarm. Nowhere were
there signs of conspiracy to murder the
whites, and the commission reported that
"no such intention exists".

Of course they heard disturbing stories
everywhere. Many conversations, said to
have been overheard among the coloured
people, had been recorded. Loyal servants
had given vague warnings. For example,
Sampie, a coloured cook, had told her

mistress, Mrs. H. C. van Niekerk : "I have
something on my mind, a great heaviness
which I cannot utter. I may not tell it, but
mistress will see within a short time, when
the early crops are in and the hay is in
stock. I am very sorry for master and
mistress and also those poor children."

Another rumour indicated that all the
heads of the white people would be cut
off. It was said that the massacre would be
carried out while the white people were
attending the Christmas Day services.
Cobus, a Hottentot of Groene Kloof, gave
an earlier date and was reported to have
declared: "In eight days time I will be
king."

On the other hand the Rev. G. W.
Stegmann, a missionary, informed the
commission that the coloured people in
his area had not a gun among them which
would kill anything larger than a mole. He
scoffed at the talk of a revolt.

In the end the commission pinned down
one man who had done more than anyone
else to spread the rumours and bring about
this near-crisis. He was Mr. Adriaan
Johannes Louw of the farm Adderley to
the north of Durbanville, an influential
man who had served as field cornet and
justice of the Peace. Louw was an
enterprising farmer, the first in the district
to set up a windmill. When he addressed
circulars to magistrates and friends in his
own and other districts, great weight was
attached to his words.

On October 24, 1851, Louw sent the
following circular round the countryside:
"Dear Fellow Burghers, I wish you to bear
in mind and be on your guard respecting a
rumour which is in circulation, and of
which I have been informed by three
different persons - that the black classes
wish to exterminate the male white
classes, and that this will take place in the
next harvest, when on each farm there will
be many blacks. Keep this secret from the

blacks and the lower classes of whites.
They know that in Cape Town there is not
a single soldier or dragoon and that they
now stand a good chance. At St.
Domingo, a French colony, all the whites
were in one night extirpated by the blacks.
In future they will contrive it more
cleverly, and in the evening or during the
night commence at every place at the
same time, falling upon every male
unexpectedly when at their meals; or they
speak of doing it at the full moon or
Christmas or New Year ... You must
therefore arm yourselves well and let a
white person keep guard in the evening
and during the night at every place. Take
all guns and assegais from your people in
the harvest-time. We are surrounded by
enemies as bad as the Kaffirs ... People
must not be allowed to fire shots, as usual,
when the grain has been cut down. But
whenever anything breaks out on any
place, loud shots must be fired by the
owners, which must be continued from

place to place, and everyone must collect
in the neighbourhood of my residence
with his family, to overcome the enemy
and stop the evil at once. Please to send
this with the greatest haste from place to
place."

Louw was pitiable under cross-
examination by members of the
commission, "a mixture of self-
importance and imbecility", according to
their report. They summed up: "Mr. A. J.
Louw was the chief propagator of the
whole alarm by mischievous circulars
addressed to the neighbouring farmers. He
is a worthy member of society, but so
excited that it appeared to affect his
intellect."

So the commission found that all the
rumours were groundless. Panic gave way
to a deep peace. Adriaan Louw lived on at
Adderley, no doubt deprecating any
reference to the strange interlude of unrest
which he had started. He died in 1874,

and his tomb stands in the graveyard on
the farm.

Chapter 16

The People And The Trees

EVERY TOWN, almost every village in
South Africa has a tree with a story, often
trees with traditions. Almost everyone has
memories of remarkable trees and forests,
and the people of the forests.

It would be hard to find many of the old
type of bearded woodcutter in the Knysna
forests today. They are dying out, and a
way of life which was not altogether
desirable is vanishing, too. Backward the
old men were; yet they could perform

feats with the axe which the younger
generation would not dare to attempt. One
thirsty, barefooted takhaar, I remember,
would hold a match between his toes and
bring his axe down with such precision
and restraint that he would split the match
without touching his own flesh. He gave
this memorable show outside the bars of
Knysna village in the certainty that
appreciative onlookers would slake his
thirst. I am glad to say that he never raised
his axe after raising his glass.

Those old woodcutters lived so deep in
the green silence that they formed a race
apart, probably the most isolated white
people in South Africa. I was assured that
some of the grown men and women had
never seen a village, while there were
children who knew only the faces of their
parents and their too numerous brothers
and sisters.

Last century these strange folk dressed in
skins and lived in skerms with only three
walls. The old men I met, with their long

beards, were like Rip Van Winkles in a
modern world. Progress had hardly
touched these isolated characters. I
thought of them as a tragic race apart;
people living so far from civilisation that
they had no chance of rising above their
environment. A friendly, generous people
struggling for their mere food in one of
the hardest trades in the world. But so
primitive that it was found almost
impossible to help them.

Of English, Scottish and Afrikaner
descent were these men of the axe. For
more than a century they brought the
enormous stinkwood and yellowwood
trees crashing down; felling, squaring,
sawing in those hot, moist, sunless
backwoods. They were paid by results,
and they showed themselves no mercy as
they hacked out their livelihood from the
ancient trees. Seldom were they well-
nourished; yet they were capable of
enormous labour.

Progress had hardly touched these isolated

charaters ... a friendly, generous people
struggling for their mere food in one of the
hardest trades in the world.

For them the call of the woods was
irresistible. They went out first as little
boys, carrying water for the working
parties, robbing wild hives, shooting
bush-doves, making fires for the coffee.
Small wonder that they could not be kept
at school for long. As soon as they had
reached their 'teens they were ready to
sweat over the huge, felled tree-trunks
with axe and saw. The woodcutter could
see no farther than the dense wall of his
forests, no other future for his children.
Year after year the number of trees
allotted to woodcutters in the Government
reserve was reduced. But in the mind of
the woodcutter there was no threat to his
existence, no plain warning.

The foreman on a private forest estate told
me that he once took a middle-aged
woodcutter with him on a hunting
expedition to the open veld near George,
fifty miles away. They travelled by motor-
car, and the woodcutter was astounded. "I

never thought Africa was so large," he
exclaimed.

There is a pathetic story, too, of a
woodcutter who went mad, ran amuck
with his axe, and killed a coloured boy.
He was sent to an asylum in Cape Town.
At the end of three years, during a period
of sanity, he escaped and trudged back
towards his beloved forests. He had no
map, no knowledge of the road, nothing
but a strong, sure instinct, like a homing
pigeon. Fearing detection, he marched at
night, avoiding villages, taking a route
that lay along mountain slopes. For more
than three hundred miles he stumbled on,
coming at last to the lonely shack where
dwelt his wife and children. One night he
spent with them; then he was found and
taken back. "Sentence me to years of
imprisonment if you like," he pleaded,
"but let me know that one day I can come
home." Such is the spell of the forests.
Men bred in cities feel as though they
were facing a sinister and mysterious

presence when they step out of the
sunlight into that mass of creepers, ferns
and trees. They would lose themselves in
five minutes after leaving a path. The
woodcutters find their way by sun and
stars, and never lose their keen sense of
direction. But early this century a
woodcutter's child disappeared in the
forests. There was a great search, and
undoubtedly the child would have been
found but for the sudden rain that washed
away all track an trace of the poor,
frightened thing. All trace obliterated for
ever - except a hat, which they took back
to the mother ...

The talk when woodcutters gathered was
usually of accidents. There was the man
whose legs were pinned down by the tree
he had just felled, the only miscalculation
of that kind on record. When found, he
had worn his fingers almost to the bone in
his efforts to dig away the earth beneath
him.

Planks arrived at the Knysna factories
looking as though they had been planed
by machinery; twenty-feet long, without a
deviation of one thirty-second of an inch,
all done by axe and saw. Yet most of
these old craftsmen were earning from
two to five pounds a month. When I
visited the woodcutters a quarter of a
century ago it was possible for a
woodcutter in a private forest, with the
help of two young sons, to make eighteen
shillings a day clear profit. But such
earnings could not be maintained for long.
Rain and illness, usually through over-
exertion, brought the average income
down to a small figure.

The little body of men licensed to fell
trees in the Government forests numbered
about three hundred at that time. No new
names had been added to the roll of
registered woodcutters for many years, so
that one old type has died out.

Each year the trees, to be sold were
numbered by Forest Department officials,

the woodcutters inspected them, drew lots
for the trees, and gathered at different
forest stations for the allotment. They had
to pay for the trees, of course, and there
was an element of chance in the business
which appealed mightily to the old men. If
all their trees were perfect they secured
good prices. But there was always the risk
of rot, bad heart and poor colour, and
sometimes it was difficult to persuade the
forester that a tree was defective enough
to justify a refund of the purchase price.

Old woodcutters, however, claimed that
they could look at a stinkwood tree and
tell at once whether the wood possessed
that typical dark colour which was so
desirable. The demand for stinkwood
furniture, of course, is comparatively
recent. Thousands of tons of it went in
wagons.

Many of the woodcutters could not read,
write or count; but they knew to the
nearest penny how much was due to them
for their work. Like the alluvial diamond

diggers, their output was often pledged far
in advance to their storekeepers. They
were improvident, but they disliked being
in debt. It was a tribute to their honesty, as
a class, that they were allowed to buy
necessities for months on end when,
through illness, they were unable to pay.
One man owed a hundred pounds at the
end of a long illness. He paid back every
penny within a year, and had something
over; but prodigious amounts of sawdust
and sweat went towards the repayment of
that debt.

They could have improved their standard
of living by growing some of their own
food; but they were never content to till
the soil for long. During slack times some
of them worked as farm labourers. Then,
just at a time when they were most
needed, they would hurry back to the
forest life.

There were far too many boy and girl
marriages in the forests. Youths of twenty,
who had saved enough money to buy

axes, considered that they were set up for
life. Another crazy shack of poles, boards
and galvanized iron appeared on someone
else's land. The young man took a girl of
fourteen or fifteen as a wife. And another
huge family was raised.

With all their faults and follies, the
woodcutters were, in the main, sober and
law-abiding. The police often had to stop
the brewing of bee wine, a devastating
spirit made from wild honey and yeast. At
New Year, the chief festival of the forests,
the woodcutters sent for barrels of wine
and played their guitars and concertinas.
For the rest of the year they worked. Meat
was a luxury to be enjoyed, at most, once
a week. I visited one of their stores in the
main forest and saw displayed the simple
things they bought. Meal, coffee, sugar
and tobacco; those were the most
important items in the woodcutter's daily
life. Sardines and bully beef were not
bought every day. Old Dutch medicines
were there, of course, for emergencies.

And rows of field boots and blankets and
tools, expensive articles to be stared at
wistfully and purchased only after deep
thought.

It is estimated that the Knysna yellow-
wood tree takes two thousand years to
grow. And the old woodcutters were men
of earlier centuries, like the trees.

Once there was a fire in these forests that
terrified man and beast. It was the fire that
swept from Swellendam to Uitenhage in
1869, the greatest fire known in South
Africa since the white man came. If there
is anyone still living who remembers that
fire clearly, then he must be almost a
centenarian. But I met several old people
in Knysna years ago who talked about the
great fire as the most vivid event of their
lives.

That fire raged along a course of four
hundred miles, and spread out in some
places over a front of more than a hundred
miles. It is hard to say where or how it

started, and one newspaper reported:
"From Uitenhage to Riversdale the
country appears to have burst
simultaneously into a blaze. The glorious
forest of Knysna is destroyed." After a
careful study of the records, however, I
think that Uitenhage saw the opening of
this catastrophe.

It was on February 9, 1869 that the people
of Uitenhage awoke to a misty dawn. This
was followed by the hottest wind they had
ever known, a north-east wind like a
flame, a wind that put a stop to every sort
of work and drove the bewildered people
indoors. At noon the shade temperatures
was one hundred and twelve degrees. It
was difficult to breathe. Late that
afternoon the wind was blowing from the
south-west at hurricane force.

They had seen a mass of smoke in the
distance earlier in the afternoon. Now the
sun was covered and it was difficult to
find a way through the blinding smoke in
the village.

News reached Uitenhage that the farm of
Captain Boys, the showplace of the
district, had been destroyed with all the
household treasures and a fine collection
of old Dutch masters. Mrs. Boys and her
four daughters had saved their lives by
wrapping themselves in blankets and
taking refuge in the river. Ashes
smothered the Cape road for miles.
Wagons and freight were burnt out. Many
sheep were lost, while some escaped with
the wool scorched close to their skins.
This was a cruel day for the wild creatures
of the forest, too, and buck were so tamed
by fear that they crouched on stoeps in
Uitenhage. The village itself escaped.

Humansdorp appeared to be in great
danger, and the church bell rang the
alarm. The whole Tsitsikama forest as far
as Cape St. Francis was ablaze, while the
hills to the north of Humansdorp were
also in flames. "It was like a prairie fire in
America," wrote a Humansdorp resident.
"Resinous odours filled the air and a

hurricane carried smoke, fire and sparks.
High overhead flew great sheets of flame.
The sun was as red as fire, and more than
one person thought that the final day of
God's just retribution had arrived. The
fire was two miles from the village when
the wind veered to the north-west. We
were surrounded by fire, yet not a house
in Humansdorp was touched,"

There were forty-one deaths in the
Humansdorp district, some people being
burnt to death while others were killed by
the heat. Grain crops which had been
reaped and the ripening mealies and beans
were lost.

Knysna saw the frightening drama of the
fire on the following day, which happened
to be Ash Wednesday. Mr. B. H. Darnell,
owner of the fine Westford property,
recorded his experiences: "At dawn the
berg wind, the sirocco of South Africa,
was blowing steadily from the north. The
temperature was a hundred degrees before
eight in the morning, and at nine we saw a

great fire raging in the flats above us. I
knew it was all up with Westford. As the
sole guardian of thirteen women and
children I was distracted. Denser and
denser grew the smoke and brighter the
glare of the fire, while the thermometer
rose higher and higher and the wind
increased in violence. At first I could only
hear the noise of the fire. Presently, above
the smoke, I saw liquid fire pouring over
cliffs, and below them, on the opposite
bank of the river, great streams of fire."

As the fire roared on, Darnell and the
women and children found themselves
literally at the mouth of a blow-pipe. They
ran for the river and joined people who
had found safety on the pontoon. There
they were safe, but the fire had made a
clean sweep of Westford. Houses, trees,
gardens, orchards and forest had gone.
"The labour and pleasure of sixteen years
has been swept away in a few minutes,"
Darnell reported. "Books, pictures, furni-
ture, plate, the memorials of a lifetime

have gone. One might as well be on the
barest Karoo place as on the banks of the
Knysna. Nature can never restore the
grand old trees, pride of the forest, some
of them thirty feet in circumference."

When the main fire had passed, Darnell
walked along the river bank surveying the
devastation. Not only buck, but elephants,
had been roasted alive. He could find
hardly a sign of life except a cunning old
baboon which had avoided the fire and
now crouched in the desolation. Mighty
trees were still crashing in every direction,
some hissing as they fell into the river. By
a benevolent freak of the fire, all the
villages in its path, including Knysna,
escaped destruction. So close did the
flames pass, however, that the heat in
Knysna was intense. The toll in the
districts was indeed heavy.

In the Knysna area the Duthies of
Belvidere had been burning the veld for
grazing. This made a fire-path, and so the
great blaze left their famous estate

untouched. But the fine Portland farm
owned by the Barringtons was almost
entirely destroyed. Cottages and forest on
Eastford (a glebe of the English church
where the bishop lived) were burnt out.
The Newdigates of Forest Hall lost two
thousand acres of forest, but the house
was saved by its iron roof. Dozens of
small farmers lost their homes, stock and
crops. The poor woodcutters, who had the
least to lose, probably felt the effects of
the fire more than anyone else, for they
could not afford to replace their small
possessions.

Mr. Barnard of Buff els Vermaak, a
neighbour of Darnell, made for the river
when the fire became intense. He took a
chest containing thousands of sovereigns
and the family silver with him on a small
cart. The fire came so close to where he
had sought refuge that he and his family
had to stand up to their necks in water to
avoid catching alight. They saved their

lives and their money, though the gold
and silver melted in the chest.

A schoolmaster on the flats above
Phantom Pass, between Westford and
Portland, was giving a Bible lesson when
he noticed the fire in the distance.
Suddenly a whirlwind appeared, black
with smoke. The wind rose to a roar and
whined its menace in the roof, shaking the
whole building so that all knew it would
collapse at any moment. The door had
jammed, but the children and master
scrambled through the window just in
time. They could see the flames leaping
from hilltop to hilltop, missing the homes
and trees in the valleys. It was so dark at
two in the afternoon that survivors had to
light their lamps.

One family stacked their furniture in the
open and prepared to load it on to a
wagon. The flames came before they
could move off, taking the furniture and
sparing the house.

Snakes were observed writhing madly,
with mouths open, in the effort to escape.
Frightened birds flew into houses, and
thousands of birds were smothered by the
smoke. A man saw eight buck standing
together and cooling their burnt feet in the
river.

A conversation between Newdigate and
Barrington after the fire was recorded
many years ago, and provides a valuable
sidelight on the disaster and the
philosophy of the victims.

"You are a marvel to be so 'cheerful after
what you have gone through," remarked
Newdigate.

Barrington replied: "I have much to thank
God for. My dear wife and all my children
are safe. We are pioneers in a new
country, and I fear that I for one was
selfish in wishing for earthly comfort. My
children escaped by a miracle. A native
boy helped to take the little children, one
a baby in arms, to a piece of bare rock

well above the forests. My home has
gone, above all my valuable library is in
ashes. I still have a few bottles of wine
and a sack of meal, but my stores for the
year have gone. I have already started to
build again. After all, I have the land, the
cattle, servants, wagons and sawmill - and
my wife and children." People in Cape
Town, with their traditional kindness, held
a public meeting to raise money for the
needy victims of the fire. Bread, clothes,
bedding and food were rushed to the
afflicted districts. Knysna held a day of
thanksgiving and special church services
on March 14.

In the forests the fire still smouldered. The
ashes were still warm in pits and caves six
months after the inferno. And the origin of
it all? Veld burning, the hand of man, the
old curse of South Africa.

In the Knysna forests, impressive though
they are, I always feel that there is too
much to see. No doubt that is why I prefer

deserts to the lush country. The isolated
tree makes a landmark.

I was flying round the Pretoria
countryside with Major "Duke" Meintjes
in an old DH 9 long ago when Meintjes
pointed out the Wonderboom. This is a
tree to remember, a tree that became a
forest. Very soon I drove out for eight
miles, through the narrow break in the
Magaliesberg called Voortrekker Nek, to
explore this marvel at ground level.

The Wonderboom is an evergreen wild fig
tree which owes its world-wide fame
among botanists to the extraordinary
manner of its growth. It is about seventy-
five feet high, a hemispherical mass with
thirteen individual trunks which have
sprung from the original central trunk.
Many years ago the branches became too
heavy and took root like strawberry plants
for climbing shrubs. This process is all the
more unusual when you consider that this
particular fig tree (Ficus Pretoriae Burtt
Davy) is more of a tropical growth, and

The Wonderboom is an evergreen wild fig tree which owes its world-wide fame among botanists to

the exraordinary manner of it growth

Pretoria is almost its extreme southern
limit.

Dr. I. B. Pole Evans, the botanist,
described the Wonderboom as "the most
remarkable example of its species in
Africa and a national monument". Its age
has been estimated at three centuries. The
central mass of stem has a circumference
of eighty-one feet, and the whole tree
forms a canopy over an area large enough
to shelter hundreds of people.

Bushmen lived in a cave overlooking the
Wonderboom centuries ago. There is a
legend that when natives attacked the
cave, the Bushmen escaped through a
secret tunnel which penetrates the
mountain. However, no trace of this old
sanctuary has been found.

Charles Zeyher the botanical collector
seems to have missed the Wonderboom
during his visit to the neighbourhood with
Burke in the eighteen-forties. The first
mention of the tree was made by a Swiss

missionary named Creux in 1862, and his
measurements show that the tree has
grown little since then.

A Natal trader named Menne was
camping under the Wonderboom with his
servants and cattle in the early days. Fires
were blazing and the evening meal was
being prepared. Into this pleasant scene
rushed a black rhino. It stampeded the
cattle, charged the servants, scattered the
cooking pots and fires. Then, after staring
at the disconcerted humans it broke out of
the tree circle and departed. White and
black rhino rubbed their hides against the
Wonderboom in those days, but they will
not be seen there again.

In the wagon days the Wonderboom was a
favourite outspan. Transport riders halted
there. Close by is an old fort, built to
protect the road to Pretoria from warlike
natives. During one native campaign a
whole commando with sixty wagons
made its headquarters under the tree.

Many a Dingaan's Day celebration has
been held there.

Dr. W. G. Atherstone, the geologist, who
identified the first South African diamond,
examined the Wonderboom in 1873 and
carried away a twig. Since then almost
every herbarium in the world has been
supplied with branches.

Lady Florence Dixie rode out to the
Wonderboom a few years after
Atherstone, accompanied by Sir Evelyn
Wood, General Ballairs and Colonel
Gildea. She commented in a book she
wrote on the natural defensive strength of
the position. "One of the principal sights
which we were bent on seeing that day
was the great Wonderboom, or wonderful
tree. When we had threaded the Pass and
skirted a reedy lake from which the cry of
the wild duck arose, the tree, with its
heavy mass of foliage, hove in sight,
looking like some huge giant amidst the
dwarf vegetation that surrounded it.
Putting spurs to our horses, several of us

raced to reach the spot first, which foolish
exploit under a hot sun made both
ourselves and our horses very hot, and
rendered the dark, cool shade of the great
tree doubly acceptable and refreshing.
Examination proved it to be of an
ambitious and progressive nature, the
larger branches, as soon as they became
developed, drooping earthwards until,
taking root, fresh life springs forth from
the younger scions of the old stem."

An interesting water-colour of the
Wonderboom in 1879 by Mrs.
Archdeacon Roberts shows the loop
connections from the main stem by which
the tree propagated itself. These were
chopped off by vandals this century, while
the interior of the main trunk was burnt
out.

Further damage was caused as the result
of the dreams of a woman prophet in
Pretoria. She declared that a great hoard
of gold lay buried near the roots, or in the
huge trunk itself. The story became linked

with the legend of the "Kruger millions",
the boxes of gold which the President was
supposed to have hidden when he was
forced to leave the Transvaal. Dr. Leyds,
who accompanied Kruger on that journey,
made it absolutely clear that no republican
gold was buried during that period.
Treasure legends never die, in spite of
contradictions. Many holes, some seven
feet deep, were dug round the main stem,
and the last remaining connections
between the main trunk and the second
and third outer circles of trunks were
severed.

Across the Aapies River, but not far away,
is the Klein Wonderboom of the same
species. This is the home of many birds
which enjoy the wild figs and other fruits
of the area. There you may see starlings
plum-coloured and green, sunbirds
seeking their nectar, warblers and crested
barbets, woodpeckers and doves, Dr.
Austin Roberts identified two hundred
distinct species in this neighbourhood.

The whole area is now a nature reserve
and bird sanctuary, a strong contrast
indeed with the wild days of the oud-
stryders and hunters.

Another tree of adventure is the baobab.
When I sleep under a baobab far from the
cities I think of the creatures that roamed
beneath that grotesque tree thousands of
years ago. For the weird baobab is
probably the oldest living tree, reaching
five thousand years under favourable
conditions.

It belongs to the tropics, of course, and
you find them all the way down Africa
from Egypt to the Transvaal, always
within sound of the "ping-ing-ing-zzz" of
the mosquito. I camped under an
enormous baobab in the far Kaokoveld
once, and drank the acid, lemon-tasting
beverage made from the seed capsules. As
a remedy for malaria, however, I would
prefer paludrine. The old explorers had to

When I sleep under a baobab far from the cities I think of the creatures that roamed beneath that

grotesque tree thousands of years ago.

use what they could find. Natives make
an alcoholic drink from these seeds, the
"Laughing Spirits" of many a night of
revelry. Monkeys also love the fruit, and
in many parts of Africa the baobab is
known as the monkey bread tree. David
Livingstone called the baobabs "those
upturned carrots". He slept in a hollow
baobab and declared there was room for
thirty men inside the trunk.

An eccentric official at Katima Molilo in
the Caprivi Strip found a new use for the
old baobab; he installed a flush lavatory,
probably the only one on the African
continent. However, he moved all the
equipment out again after encountering a
mamba there. Baobabs growing in
Northern Transvaal villages are some-
times used as garages. More than one
farmer has discovered that the interior of
the tree has a preservative atmosphere;
you can keep meat fresh there, and it is a
good, cool place for a dairy. Towards the
end of last century there was a bar in a fat

baobab outside Leydsdorp, a famous
haunt of the gold-seekers.

Native chiefs in Abyssinia and farther
south have been buried in the trunks of
baobabs. Their bodies have become
mummified owing to the preservative
action. No doubt that is the reason why
certain baobabs are reputed to be the
homes of devils. After dark the devils lie
in wait among the twisted branches for
victims. Place your ear to the trunk and
you will hear the devils inside chuckling.
Even the boldest native sings as he passes
a baobab at night, never pausing to listen
to the evil voices.

Perhaps the bees are responsible for the
legend. Wild bees often perforate the soft
trunk of a baobab and lodge their honey in
the recesses. This is regarded by many
native epicures as the finest honey in
Africa.

In dry areas the top of the baobab trunk
acts as a reservoir, catching rainwater and

dew. When you see pegs driven into the
trunk you may be sure there is a natural
reservoir above. Early travellers recorded
their gratitude for this wise custom,
saying that the water saved their lives.
However, the tree reservoir is not without
its perils. I heard of a lone Bushman who
climbed in search of moisture, fell into the
deep, hollow trunk and perished. But in
lion country the baobab may be a lifesaver
indeed. The foot traveller who has to sleep
beside the road feels much more
comfortable in the branches.

The baobab, cream of tartar tree, received
its botanical name Adansonia digitata
from the French traveller Adanson. He
examined fine specimens in Senegal two
hundred years ago. (Cape Verde, where
Adanson landed, gained its name when
the early Portuguese sighted the green
leaves of the baobabs in the desert.)
Scientists have calculated from the rings
in the cross-section of the main trunk that
the baobab may live twice as long as the

Sacred Bo-Tree of Ceylon, the fig tree
planted nearly three centuries before the
birth of Christ and worshipped ever since.
Humboldt, the explorer, spoke of the
baobab as "the oldest organic monument
of our planet".

The bottle-shaped trunk of the baobab
swells out in the course of the centuries to
a diameter of thirty or forty feet. Some
specimens have a girth greater than their
height. The maximum height is about
seventy feet. Then the soft, spongy trunk
branches out into huge, nightmarish
branches carrying little golden lamps of
flowers.

Probably the best-known baobab in Africa
is "The Tree" close to the Victoria Falls,
and seen by every tourist. (This should not
be confused with the tree on Livingstone
Island at the very brink of the Falls,
mentioned elsewhere in this book, on
which Livingstone carved his initials.)
Many baobabs have been declared
"historical monuments" to save them from

destruction. Many fine specimens have
been protected in the streets and gardens
of Messina. Between the wars a large
baobab was worth about a hundred
pounds, and a firm cut them down and
pulped them for paper. Since 1942,
however, it has been illegal to fell a
baobab anywhere in the Union.

One remote baobab in the Zambesi valley
records stirring and tragic pages of
African adventure. Old hunters chose that
tree as a monument to friends who would
hunt no more. The inscriptions read as
follows:

Rider, died fever Lake Ngami 1 850.
Maher, killed by Baralongs 1852.
Wahlberg, killed by wounded elephant
1857.

Dolman, died of thirst in Kalahari

desert 1851.
Robinson, taken by crocodile Botetli

river 1851.
Pretorius, died fever near Victoria

Falls 1862.

Bonfield, killed by crocodile

Ovamboland 1861.
Burgess, blown up, gunpowder

accident 1860.

If a baobab tree is cut down, say the
natives, lions will surely visit the spot. A
hunter once told me that there was some
ground for the belief; the water stored in
the trunk would attract the animals in a
dry season.

Truly the baobab marks the path of
African adventures. And surely it is the
most fantastic of South Africa's five
hundred varieties of native trees. Always
their vast trunks and mushroom branches
give the landscape an impression of their
size, coupled with a grey breath of old
age. I think the early Dutch explorer's
description remains the most fitting:
"Eenen boom die, niet minder dan de
Olyphant onder de Beesten, een monster
is onder het geboomte. " (A tree that, no
less than the elephant among the animals,
is a monster among the trees.)

Chapter 17
Trails Of The Tuskers

Elephants take us back to the dawn of
the world. Other great creatures of the
prehistoric darkness are now known only
by their bones. The elephant comes
trumpeting into our day as a surviving
mammoth, the real king of the beasts,
brave and strong and possibly wiser than
the apes. But unless we are careful, this
century may be the twilight of the African
elephant.

Wherever you find elephants there are
mysteries to be solved. I have listened to
the local elephant legends in many parts
of Africa. A sight I shall never forget was
the well-known Bor herd on the Nile near
Juba, seen from the air in wartime. They
looked like chubby mice. But the
elephants which I regard fondly as
romantic little groups (never having been
in the way of a stampede) are the Knysna
and Addo herds. Elephants are rarities
indeed at the southern end of Africa. It is
strange to find any elephants alive in these
forests after the massacres of the past, and
they are worth preserving.

Some say that the Knysna elephants are
the largest in the world, while the Addo
elephants are dwarfs. Certainly a story
worth investigating. I have heard the
legend of the "elephant graveyard" in both
areas. Then there are tales, almost incre-
dible but true, of elephant intelligence. All
over Africa there are roads and railways
which follow the old trails of the tuskers.

Many a government surveyor, seeking the
easiest gradients, has found his theodolite
merely confirming what the elephants
discovered ages ago. Bloukrans Pass on
the Garden Route is an old elephant
highway. A surveyor followed an elephant
track between Tsitsikama and the east. He
came to one place where the elephants
must have climbed steep rocks and used
the root of a tree to lever themselves
upwards. It was difficult, but the only way
through, and the elephants had conquered
it.

Many old people in the town of Knysna
have never seen an elephant. Yet the last
four are there, in the cool green shelter of
the forest; descendants of the vast herds
that made their home among the tall
stinkwood trees when the world was
young. It is another proof of man's greed
that only four of all those uncounted
thousands should remain. Perhaps the
oldest of the survivors escaped from white
hunters with muzzle-loaders. No one

knows how long an elephant may live.
Long ago the herds in these forests
became the victims of Bushmen who used
poisoned arrows and dug pits. How long
will the last four survive?

My friend Denis Woods, mountaineer and
authority on wild life in Southern Africa,
tells me that the three bulls and one cow
of the Knysna group now roam in a re-
duced area only six miles from Knysna
town. Late last century there were
hundreds of elephants in these forests.
Denis Woods believes that only the
importation of new blood could save this
herd. The calves would not be true
Knysna elephants, but the strain might be
passed on by the surviving bull.

I went in search of those elephants years
ago, when there were more of them, but
saw only their droppings and the boughs
they had snapped during their tremendous
passage. In the forest, seven miles from
Knysna, I met a timber foreman, one of
the handful of men who knew the

elephants. "They were rooting up the
ferns in a kloof when I last saw them," he
said. "Talking to each other with voices
like turkey-cocks, rolling in the mud-
holes, tobogganing down the muddy
slopes with their feet together like great
dogs. I was not more than three hundred
yards away, but they could not get my
scent - the wind was in my direction. For
ten minutes I watched them at play; then I
shouted. They all went swaying off
blindly into the undergrowth, gaining
speed like battering-rams, the old ones
urging the calves along, until they disap-
peared, still trumpeting and breaking
down the young trees in their path."

On rainy days, sometimes, the herd leaves
the forest to rove the open veld. Elephants
detest heat and the blind flies that worry
them in the open on hot days. Also, they
seem to know that they are less likely to
encounter human beings in wet weather.

The foreman once found an elephant
skeleton, with one tusk in the ground,

broken, and the other missing - stolen by
some poacher. Years ago there was a
daring band of Knysna woodcutters who
used to prey on the elephant herds. The
ivory was smuggled away under loads of
timber in ox wagons fitted with false
bottoms. Elephant hunting was still
permitted in the Northern Transvaal in
those days; and there the poachers sold
their tusks.

People in Knysna still talk of the Duke of
Edinburgh's elephant hunt in 1864, and
old engravings in many homes show the
Duke firing at an enormous tusker at
eighteen yards range while his frenzied
horse bolts. That day the dogs tackled a
cornered herd. The elephants immediately
formed a sort of laager, with their tusks
outwards and the young elephants inside
the square. They maintained that
formation to keep the dogs at bay; then
the elephant leader trumpeted and the herd
stampeded to safety. Later in the day,
however, two fine bulls were shot and the

Duke took the heads and skins back to
England with him.

Some accounts state that one of the
Duke's elephants measured thirteen feet at
the shoulder, while the length from trunk
to tail was thirty-two feet. A Knysna
elephant shot in 1919 was reported to
stand twelve feet six inches in height, and
this specimen was claimed as the largest
ever mounted for a museum anywhere in
the world. However, the South African
Museum authorities contested the claim
on the ground that the system of
measurement was faulty. This particular
elephant is to be seen in the Transvaal
Museum, Pretoria.

It is difficult to prove the assertion that the
Knysna elephants are (or rather were) the
largest members of the race because there
are few records to assist the scientist. The
old hunters were interested only in ivory.
They measured tusks, not torsos. How-
ever, all through the years of hunting you
come across references to the Knysna

giants. One day, perhaps, a sufficient
number of skulls will be found and
measured by some keen zoologist in
search of the facts.

So much mystery still surrounds the life
story and habits of the elephant that it is
not remarkable that the Knysna herd
provides riddles for the people of the
forests. There is a government station in
the forest at Deepwalls. Year after year,
sometimes on the same night each year,
the herd crosses the road at the thirteenth
milestone near Deepwalls. They remain in
a lonely, burnt-out clearing for two days;
then they return to their favourite abode at
a place called Oubrand. No one can say
what strange instinct moves them to make
this regular pilgrimage.

Regular camp followers of the Knysna
elephants are the wild pigs of the forest.
Often the herds mingle. The pigs, of
course, know very well that the powerful
elephants will kick up all sorts of
tempting food in the shape of roots, seeds

and insects. It will be a sad day for the
bosvark when the last Knysna elephant
dies.

Baboons also keep the elephants
company. When a man approaches the
elephants go swaying off blindly, crashing
through the bush, urging the calves along
and breaking down the young trees in
their path. The plantations suffer, even
from this small herd. Elephants like tasty
roots. They make a mass attack, like a
battering-ram, on a tree which is too
strong for one elephant to uproot alone. A
forest official once showed me a fire-belt
of young blackwood trees, valued at two
hundred pounds, torn down by the herd.
These Knysna elephants seem to hate the
works of man. They have hurled wagons
off the forest tracks, scattered loose stone
beacons, destroyed gates.

Nevertheless it is more than half a century
since a Knysna elephant killed a man. He
had foolishly pitched his camp on an
elephant trail, and while he slept his dog

annoyed an elephant. Furiously the
elephant charged the dog and crushed the
sleeping man. I have also heard of a
hunter of the 'seventies named Marais
who shot ninety-nine elephants and laid a
bet that he would pluck a hair from the
tail of his hundredth elephant before
shooting it. The elephant scented him, and
that ended Knox's career. False or true,
the tale bears a strong resemblance to an
Addo legend which I shall relate
presently.

Woodcutters used to fear the elephants,
and not altogether without reason. When
they felled timber near a herd they always
lashed a rope ladder to a safe tree. I was
told of a party of woodcutters who were
"treed" for two days. Of course there are
many false alarms, and a famous practical
joke used to be played by the woodcutters.
One of the party crept away from the
camp at night, rolled a log down towards
his companions, and blew into a paraffin
tin. This reproduced exactly the terrifying

noise of a charging elephant. The
woodcutters cleared out, and the
humourist was able to jeer at the men in
the tree-tops.

It is said that the Knysna elephants go
pounding across country, at intervals of
many years, to visit their dwarf cousins in
the Addo Bush. No such stampede,
however, has been observed in recent
times. The last of the Knysna giants have
little in common with their Addo cousins.

Thousands of people see the Addo
elephants every year, one of the most
interesting herds in Africa. Generations of
hunters, years of hunger and thirst, made
these elephants so vicious that Selous
declared that any man who ventured into
the Addo bush unarmed was a "suicidal
ass". Now the last rifle-shot has been
heard in the Addo National Game
Reserve. The elephants have been enticed
into the open, supplied with water and
oranges. New roads have been built round
the reserve. The Addo herd has taken its

place as one of the wonders of South
Africa.

Once the Addo elephants were giants like
the other herd of survivors a hundred
miles away in the Knysna forests. The
dense Addo scrub did not give them the
protection which instinct warned them
was necessary. And so, in the course of
many centuries, according to one theory,
the Addo elephants became smaller in
stature while increasing in girth. This
change not only enabled them to escape
observation, but also to force a passage
through the bush with greater ease.

Are the Addo elephants really different
from all their other African cousins?
Some naturalists are inclined to dispute
the theory, and they point to a male Addo
elephant which measured eleven feet two
inches at the shoulders; certainly a tall
elephant anywhere. Nevertheless, such an
authority as Lt. -Colonel J. Stevenson-
Hamilton, former warden of the Kruger
National Park, described the Addo herd as

of "uniformly smaller size". Dr. Austin
Roberts, too, thought the Addo elephants
formed a race apart. Most of them are
shorter and broader than other elephants.
Their hairy bodies are peculiar, a throw-
back to the shaggy mammoths of the ice
age.

Ivory hunters of the past found the Addo
elephants disappointing, for many of them
had broken their tusks in the dense under-
growth, and seven out of ten were without
tusks. Only in recent years have scientists
realised that this was another example of
evolution. A forest elephant needs tusks
for stripping bark and digging out roots.
Tusks were a handicap in the Addo bush,
and so they disappeared. You can still
trace the groove of the upper lip in tusk
less specimens, but many skulls show no
tusk cavity. Thus it is fair to assume that
the process must have started thousands of
years ago. But I wish someone would
explain to me why some of the elephants
still display tusks.

The exact strength of the present Addo
herd is unknown, though it is believed that
there are at least four large bulls and
thirteen cows and calves. So these two
small groups, dwarfs of Addo and giants
of Knysna, are all that are left of the herds
hundreds strong that devastated the farms
of early settlers and still roamed
unchecked at the beginning of this
century.

Even in 1919, when the value of such
rarities as elephants was not realised as it
is today, the extermination order was
given reluctantly. Even then there were
glimmerings of the idea that elephants
might attract tourists. Farming near the
reserve, of course, had become almost
impossible owing to the raids of the herd.
Dams had been ruined, fences uprooted,
irrigation canals destroyed. The massacre
of the herd was a mistake, but at the time
no one was prepared to take the trouble
and spend the money necessary to
preserve the Addo herd.

Major P. J. Pretorius, C.M.G., D.S.O. (the
man who located the German cruiser
Konigsberg in the Rufiji delta) was
employed by the provincial authorities to
exterminate the Addo elephants. He
claimed to have shot more than one
hundred and twenty in eleven months.
Then the slaughter was stopped.

Long afterwards, during World War II, I
met Major Pretorius for the first time,
with an Italian car (and Italian driver) he
had "commandeered" in Abyssinia. I had
always been puzzled by the death of
Major-General Ravenshaw during the
Addo hunt, and I asked Pretorius about it.
Pretorius reminded me that the great
Selous had once said that hunting in the
Addo thickets would amount to suicide. It
is a maze, a villainous thorn jungle. One
day a honeymoon couple entered the
Addo bush near Coerney station and were
never seen again. The search-parties
returned with nothing more than a few
scraps of clothing, and no one knows

whether they died of thirst, or were killed
by elephants or buffalo.

Ravenshaw, according to newspaper
reports at the time, had gone after a
leopard with two coloured beaters and had
blundered into a herd of elephant. During
the stampede, the beaters lost touch and
returned to camp without the general.
Pretorius told me of the search he
organised; the whole of his own party,
forty farmers and their labourers. And at
last they came upon the body of General
Ravenshaw, face down, untouched by any
animal, and guarded by two Alsatians
belonging to Pretorius. The post-mortem
revealed heart failure, due to General
Ravenshaw 's sufferings in World War I as
a prisoner-of-war. He had simply died of
shock when the elephants charged.

Pretorius recalled a queer sequel to this
tragedy. He sent a telegram to Mrs.
Ravenshaw, who was staying with Lady
Buxton at Government House, Cape
Town. "This is to say that my husband is

dead," said Mrs. Ravenshaw as she
opened the telegram. Four days before
that, at the time of Ravenshaw 's death,
she had known that she would never see
him again.

Only a hunter with the skill of Pretorius
could hope to survive for long in the
notorious Addo bush and Pretorius had to
find a new technique to make hunting
possible. He found the waterholes first.
Then he made a ladder to see over the
bush, and carried it with him everywhere.
He shot almost every elephant at point
blank range. And he used dogs cleverly,
finding them more reliable than some of
his coloured beaters.

A deadly maze is the Addo, and many
dramatic encounters have occurred there.
Among the last of the professional
elephant hunters in the district over a
century ago was a daredevil named
Thackwray. He made a bet that he would
find a large and vicious bull elephant,

chalk his initials on its hind quarters, and
then shoot it.

Thackwray chalked his elephant all right,
and fired. But the dying elephant managed
to grip the hunter with its trunk, and the
two were found dead together. Thus did
Thackwray learn, too late, the same lesson
that Knox of Knysna had learnt to his
cost.

Crick, a white man who appears to have
been a sort of half-witted Tarzan, lived in
the Addo early this century. In spite of his
feeble brain he was a first-class tracker
and hunter. Crick came into town only to
earn money for sugar and coffee, salt and
ammunition; then he would vanish into
the bush again and live on the buck and
birds he shot. Sometimes he poached an
elephant, always selecting one with ivory.

Crick's only friend was a farmer named
Attrill, who kept an elephant calf as a pet.
The pet died, and Attrill and Crick
ventured foolishly into the Addo in the

hope of capturing another young elephant.
Crick led Attrill up to a cow elephant with
calf. Attrill wounded the mother. The
elephant charged, and though Crick fired
again and again, Attrill was smashed to
pulp. Crick never recovered from this
experience. Long afterwards his skeleton
was found in the bush, and beneath it
there was a rusty revolver with one
cartridge used.

Every farmer in the district has stories to
tell of chance encounters with the
elephants. One farmer, taking a load of
forage to the nearest town by wagon at
night, heard the elephants trumpeting
along the road. They smelt the forage and
cautiously approached the wagon. The
farmer was a man of resource. He seized a
bundle of hay, set fire to it, and dropped it
on the road. The elephants fell back until
the light they feared had burnt out. By
firing more and more hay the farmer
reached safety, the wagon almost empty.

Another farmer named Pienaar was not so
fortunate. He was out driving cattle when
a lone bull elephant charged and killed
him. Some years ago a fencing contractor
named Vermaak was killed in much the
same way; he was hunting buck with a
shotgun when a "rogue" attacked him.
The search party found his remains days
afterwards. This death, according to the
trackers, was caused by a rogue elephant
known as Blinkvoet, which had a lame
leg. Blinkvoet was a notorious old killer,
but a Hottentot escaped from it by
creeping into an aardvark burrow and
cowering underground. The elephant tore
up the earth but failed to reach him.

The most recent tragedy was in 1952,
when Janet Marthinus, a seventeen-year-
old servant, was trampled to death at night
on the road between Addo station and
Addo Heights. She was with her sister and
two men when the elephants charged the
party. All the others escaped.

Addo farmers used to set traps for the
elephant raiders. A "spring cannon" fixed
in a well-known path would sometimes
kill an elephant. Fitzsimons of the Port
Elizabeth Museum recorded an Addo
elephant bull which had carried several
bullets and a brass cannon-ball an inch in
diameter for years. Many other elephants
in that herd had been peppered with lead,
and it had not improved their tempers.

It is said that the Addo elephants have a
system of signals, and that they always
used it in the days when they were hunted.
Often a herd of elephants makes more
noise than an express train passing
through a station. Their trumpeting could
be heard easily above the roar of a liner' s
siren. But if you approached a herd of
Addo elephants in the days when they
distrusted man, a shrill call would go out
which put every elephant on guard. They
might stampede with the noise of an
earthquake or vanish silently into the bush

with only the cracking of a bough here or
there to show which way they had gone.

Chains of fire were used at one time to
discourage the Addo elephants from
wandering out of their reserve. In hot, dry
weather they become restless and they
invaded farms in search of water.
Occasionally they broke through the
flaming bush and ran amuck on cultivated
land. Within an hour a single elephant on
the rampage can create havoc reminiscent
of a cyclone. An elephant has a great
thirst to slake.

When the Addo elephants left their own
bush to seek prickly pears in open
country, they had to cross the Port Eliza-
beth railway line. Several were killed by
trains; in 1940 there were two such
collisions. There was a time, however,
when an old bull elephant besieged the
railwaymen at Coerney station, forty
miles from Port Elizabeth. It all arose
through the folly of the station foreman's
dog, which tackled the elephant.

A moment later the dog realised its
mistake and went yelping back to the
station with the elephant thundering after
it.

That elephant had tusks. It tore down the
station fences, pounded along the platform
and searched the outside walls of the
station buildings for hours, seeking its
enemy the dog, scenting it but never
cornering it. At last the owner managed to
coax his dog into a room. The furious
elephant went off, only to return a few
hours later.

All the station staff and some friends who
were visiting them had barricaded
themselves in one of the houses. A goods
train arrived during this crisis, but the
driver remained outside the station until
the elephant had departed. Those
railwaymen never forgot the siege of
Coerney station. And it seems that the
survivors of the Addo herd have never
forgotten Pretorius and his dogs. You
could madden those gentle, orange-eating

Addo elephants to this day by firing a shot
in the air or setting a dog on them. I do
not wish to be there if any practical joker
decides to try this trick, for I have seen the
anger of the elephants in several far
corners.

These survivors owe their lives to Colonel
Deneys Reitz who, as Minister of Lands,
took steps to preserve them. He described
their terror-stricken journeys beyond the
fringe of the Addo bush in search of water
- night raids which placed them at the
mercy of indignant farmers with rifles.

"They have learnt by grim experience the
exact extent of their dubious sanctuary,"
declared Colonel Reitz. "They know to a
yard where runs the invisible boundary
through the bush of their reserve. Watch
their movements during their nightly
sortie to drink at the river, and it is clear
that the journey is to them one of
recurrent terror. They keep to the densest
part of the bush by day, and at night they

slink down furtively to drink at a gulp,
after which they rush back to cover."

The men on the spot who helped to save
the elephants were the Harvey brothers,
sons of a pioneer farmer in the area. The
Harveys allowed the remnants of the herd
to live in peace on their farms.

Mr. Harold Trollope, the game ranger
appointed by the National Parks Board,
had the delicate task of driving the
elephants off the farms and into the
reserve (proclaimed in 1931) after
windmills and dams had been provided
for them. Trollope was the man who
devised the diet of oranges which has
probably soothed the nerves of the
elephants more than anything else. A herd
which was once rightly suspicious of man
now comes out into the open every
evening to be fed.

Wherever you go on the trails of the
tuskers you are bound to hear the undying
tale of the elephant graveyard. It is a great

cemetery, piled high with ivory. Here the
elephants, guided by instinct, make their
painful, blundering way when death is
upon them.

I have heard the story of "ivory valley" in
Knysna, in the Eastern Province, in
Zululand, and in many parts of tropical
Africa. A band of hunters, camping along
the lower reaches of the Sundays River
soon after World War I, found a gorge
with a mound of disintegrating elephant
bones. A similar deposit of bones and
teeth was identified by these hunters at a
place known as Boesaks Kloof on the
farm Glen Rollo at Tootabi. Natives came
from far away to carry off the larger
bones. They ground up these bones for
"muti", mixed it with mealie meal and fed
their children on the porridge to give them
the courage of the elephants.

Mpande, thirty miles south of the
Umzimvubu river mouth, is another
"elephant cemetery" area. Mr. W. Stanyon
was removing hardwood logs for export

from the virgin forests there in 1933 when
he reached a clearing of several acres.
Here he found skeletons of a number of
elephants, but a careful search failed to
reveal the tusks. Mr. Stanyon did find an
ancient assegai head, so that he may have
discovered the victims of primitive
hunters.

About twenty years ago an amateur
excavator named Laurenson took me to a
spot near the mouth of the Milnerton vlei
and showed me what he called a
graveyard of the mammoths. For years he
had been digging up fossilised tusks and
the teeth of mammoths on Cape Town's
doorstep. These mammoths were of the
type known scientifically as the
archidiskodon, the giant forerunner of the
elephant. Laurenson declared that
Milnerton and Paarden Island were vast
cemeteries of prehistoric animals,
especially elephants. He thought that
Table Bay might once have been an
inland vlei where strange creatures

roamed. Certainly many of them died in
the Milnerton lagoon.

Elephants were roaming over most of the
Cape Peninsula when Van Riebeeck
arrived, but the last elephant on the Cape
Flats was shot fifty years later. Early last
century, however, you would have
encountered elephant herds five hundred
strong in the Graaff-Reinet area. Ivory
markets flourished long after that time.
There were hundreds of elephants in the
Knysna forests as late as 1876, and no one
imagined that they would become almost
extinct. So the legend of the elephant
cemetery became part of the folklore in
every forest where the tuskers were found.

One point about the legend which has
always impressed me is that Selous and
other famous old hunters accepted it
without question. Today there are still
many experts who are impressed by the
evidence. I was interested recently to find
such a careful naturalist as Dr. Maurice

Burton quoting a well-authenticated
example of elephants having dragged a
dead comrade through the jungle all night.
Dr. Burton has investigated many animal
legends. Some he found to be correct. In
all there was a foundation of truth.

How did this most persistent of African
legends originate? The earliest reference I
have discovered in print is in a work by
Andrew Battell, an Englishman who
travelled in Angola early in the
seventeenth century. Battell related that
the Portuguese found heaps of tusks in the
bush. Perhaps this was the birth of the
legend which others, thinking wistfully of
the valuable ivory, have embroidered after
the fashion of treasure tales. On the other
hand, I think this legend has the
foundation of truth which Maurice Burton
found in so many remarkable animal
stories.

The elephant legend is based on two well-
known facts. The first is that natives still
appear from time to time with heavy loads

of valuable tusks; tusks which have
obviously not been cut from newly-killed
elephants. "We found them in the bush,"
say the natives; that is their story and they
stick to it. But nothing will persuade them
to lead a white man to the source of the
endless supply.

The second indisputable fact is that dead
elephants, apart from those shot or
trapped, are seldom found. Now an
elephant is a difficult thing to hide. Some
parts of Africa are still alive with
elephants; their giant spoor are seen for
miles round every waterhole, and a herd,
stampeding along the horizon, looks like
an express train. Elephants in the wild
state live for about fifty years, so that in
the very large herds there must be deaths
every month. Where do the dying
elephants go? According to the legend
they know that death is upon them.
Trumpeting the shrill call of death they
vanish into the secret valley where the

huge skeletons of their ancestors lie
whitening in the sun.

Some colour is lent to the legend by the
fact that when the elephants kill a human
being they bury the body under a heap of
grass. It is argued that such intelligent
animals may have burial customs of their
own. Hunters have also watched the
elephant cows succouring their bull when
wounded; squirting water down its throat;
covering it with branches to give
protection from heat and flies; guarding
the body long after death.

Colonel J. L. F. Tweedie, a former district
commissioner in the Sudan, offered a
solution of the mystery from his own
experience. Ivory was brought to his
headquarters to be weighed and
registered, and he noticed that one
consignment was badly scorched. He
discovered that the natives had located a
herd of elephant in a swamp which had
dried out. They had fired the tall grass all-
round the herd, so that the panic-stricken

elephants had all perished within the wall
of flame. Colonel Tweedie suggested that
a traveller coming upon the bones of the
herd long afterwards might well imagine
that he had stumbled on an elephant
graveyard.

Sir William Dowers, Governor of Uganda
twenty-six years ago, estimated that about
two thousand elephants died of natural
causes in Africa every year. He agreed
that practically the only dead elephants he
had seen were those which had been shot,
trapped, speared or fallen over cliffs.
Elephants do meet with fatal accidents.
Some years ago three elephants were
killed by lightning in Northern Rhodesia.
Others have died after being bitten by
snakes. Sir William Dowers, however,
was against the cemetery theory. He
believed that the dying elephants were
submerged in rivers and swamps. And this
belief was supported by an engineer who
sank the caissons for the Blue Nile Bridge

at Khartoum. He found layers of elephant
bones twenty feet below the river bed.

Other opponents of the graveyard legend
say that it is easy to explain the absence of
dead elephants. A feeble, dying elephant
may be pulled down by a pack of lions
and the flesh eaten; then come the hyenas,
and even the largest bones are cracked
and scattered and finally covered by the
undergrowth. Along river banks the
crocodiles join in the feast. Thus a great
tusker is reduced to fragments and lost.

Carl Mauch of Zimbabwe fame, the
German explorer and prospector of the
eighteen-sixties, supported the legend. He
was travelling in Bechuanaland with a
native guide, and they entered a narrow
kloof which broadened out into a huge,
deep gorge. It was littered for miles with
bones which Mauch identified as relics of
elephants; but there were no tusks. Mauch
described this place as the elephant
cemetery of Bechuanaland.

I do not know whether Mauch' s cemetery
has been rediscovered. When I was in
Bechuanaland with a desert expedition in
1936, however, I heard a Kalahari tale
which links up with the cemetery legend.
Somewhere in the Kalahari, they say,
there is a huge volcanic crater where men,
animals and wagons have all been
trapped. A German hunter named
Erlanger declared that he had fallen into
this great pit with his wagon. Escaping
with bruises, he had found a stream of
water and lived on the provisions he
carried in his wagon. Then he explored
the crater and came across a number of
elephant skeletons complete with tusks.
After a few days in this queer prison he
hammered wooden pegs into the steep
walls and climbed out. Bushmen guided
him back to civilisation. No doubt the
ordeal of Erlanger has been exaggerated
with time, but there are so many geo-
graphical oddities in the Kalahari that the
crater may indeed exist.

Tippo Tib, greatest of the old Zanzibar
slave traders, was said to have discovered
a huge "ivory valley" where thousands of
East African elephants had gone to die.
British officials are supposed to have
offered him ten per cent of the value of all
ivory recovered if he would show them
the hoard; but he trusted no white man
and the secret was thought to have died
with him. Tippo Tib had a nephew named
Mohammed Abdulla, however, who was
just as great a scoundrel as the uncle. In
1927 Mohamed Abdulla approached the
Uganda government with a story of ivory
buried long before the white man came.
He refused to supply details beyond a
statement that he had been given the ivory
by a dead friend. Was it Tippo Tib's
hoard? Mohammed Abdulla secured the
assurances he sought, and it is on record
that he produced more than one hundred
magnificent tusks.

Major P. H. G. Powell-Cotton, a pioneer
hunter in British East Africa, always

maintained that he had found an
unmistakable elephant graveyard in the
Turkana country. "I was surprised to find
the whole countryside scattered with
remains, the fitful sun, as it struggled
through the clouds, lighting up glistening
bones in every direction," he wrote. "My
guide called this 'the place where the
elephants come to die', and assured me it
was no fell disease which had decimated a
vast herd, but that, when the elephants felt
sick, they would deliberately come long
distances to lay their bones in this spot.
The place was well-known to the
Turkana, who regularly visited it to carry
off the tusks."

Even more convincing is the evidence of
Major J. F. Cumming, a district
commissioner in the Sudan, who wrote an
account of an elephant cemetery for a
scientific journal only a few years ago.
Major Cumming shot an elephant in a
herd along the Upper Nile, and returned
next day to cut out the tusks. But the

elephant had disappeared. It was resting
under eighteen inches of earth, and
everywhere Major Cumming found the
tusk marks of the gravediggers.

I flew low over a genuine elephant
graveyard during World War II, and one
of my companions, who had been there on
foot, told me the story. It was Lake
Bangweolo in Northern Rhodesia.
Through the smoke haze of bush fires I
saw this vast, weird lake; sixteen hundred
square miles of shallow water and
tortuous waterways; paths of logs through
the swamps; canoes and huge banana trees
and rushes; birds in myriads, ducks and
herons, cranes and marabou storks. I
thought that I could detect black baboons
moving in the trees, but my companion
said they were the pygmies. He pointed
out their villages, huts on stilts on large
and small islands in this fantastic water-
jungle. And he said there were other
islands in Bangweolo where only the
elephants were at home. They were cut off

in the rainy season. Elephants were born
on those islands, and they died there.
Hunters dared not follow them, for the
rushes and thickets made these elephant
sanctuaries more dangerous to man than
the Addo bush. Somewhere near the
western shore of Bangweolo, according to
local legend, there is an elephant cemetery
with a wealth in ivory. I was content to
look down on this breeding ground and
burial place of the elephants - but I
wished the Lodestar had not flown so fast.
It was one of those tantalising glimpses
that the air gives and takes away.

All that can be said with certainty is that
the sick, dying elephant knows a great
thirst which must be slaked. Thus many
elephants in a district may follow the
same trail in their last hours; the path that
leads most easily to water. Having drunk
for the last time their great bodies may
sink into the swamp or pool which has
become the cemetery of the herd. And so

they vanish until a very dry year reveals
the skeletons and tusks.

"He has gone to die by himself," say the
natives when an old and well-known bull
elephant disappears at last from the tribal
areas. "How would we know where he has
gone?"

It may be a myth, but I like to think that
the heap of skeletons in Ivory Valley
grows larger year by year. Cullen
Gouldsbury's poem gives a vivid
impression of the secret cemetery:

Pile upon Pile of bleaching bone, and

afoul miasmic breath,
With now and again a mighty moan to

break on the hush of death —
Sluggish streams, and the silver beams

of a silent moon on high -
God forfend I should meet my end in

the Place where the elephants die.

Chapter 18
The Dodo Egg

For food the seamen hunt the flesh of

feathered fowl,
They tap the palms, the round-sterned

dodos they destroy;
The Parrot's life they spare, that he

may scream and howl
And thus his fellows to imprisonment

decoy.

Translated from a verse in the log book of
Captain Willem van West Zanen, 1601.

I AM always fascinated by rarities, and it
was an extreme rarity which Miss M.
Courtenay Latimer lifted gently from her
safe at my request. Miss Courtenay
Latimer is the Director of the East London
Museum, and the first coelacanth netted
in South African waters bears her name
(Latimer a Chalumnae); for she realized
the scientific value of the brilliant steel-
blue fish and brought Professor Smith on
the scene. However, the dodo egg which
Miss Latimer showed me is probably
worth more than any fish.

Some oologists, as the egg experts call
themselves, regard this large cream-
coloured egg as the most important
survival in the whole egg world. It must
be worth hundreds of pounds; more than
the pale greenish egg of the great auk; or
the foot-long, ivory -coloured fossil egg of
Madagascar's Aepyornis titan, largest bird
in the ancient world. In fact, the only egg
which might rival the dodo egg would be
a perfect moa egg. Fragments of these

eggs have been found in New Zealand
caves, and have fetched high prices, but a
complete moa egg has never been found.

Both the moa and the dodo became
extinct at about the same time, late in the
seventeenth century. The home of the
dodo, the grey dodo with the massive
beak, was Mauritius. Similar birds were
found on the neighbouring islands of
Reunion, where there was a white dodo,
and Rodriguez, where an unsociable,
long-legged dodo was rightly named the
solitaire. Obviously the islands were once
a single land mass, and the birds must
have developed their local differences in
isolation.

A plump bird was the dodo, as large as a
goose, but in reality a gigantic, ground
pigeon. (The late Dr. Robert Broom, the
scientist, regarded Delalande's green
pigeon of South Africa as a living link.)
On islands where the birds have no
natural enemies and no need to use their
wings they tend to become flightless.

Then man arrives and the birds are
doomed.

The dodo ought to have survived longer
than it did, for the Dutch cooks in the ship
that took possession of Mauritius could do
nothing with such a tough and unpalatable
bird. Unfortunately later ships landed
pigs, which smashed the eggs, and cats
and dogs which ate the dodos, young and
old. Some seamen were so eager to taste
fresh food that they joined in the mass-
acre.

Sir Thomas Herbert, an early English
visitor, said of the dodo: "Her body is
round and fat, which occasions the slow
pace; and so great that few of them weigh
less than fifty pounds; meat it is with
some, but better to the eye than to the
stomach, such as only a strong appetite
can vanquish. It is of a melancholy visage,
as sensible of Nature's injury in framing
so massive a body to be directed by
wings, such indeed as are unable to hoist
her from the ground. Her stomach is fiery

so that she can easily digest stones, in that
and shape not a little resembling the
ostrich."

Naturalists have studied the descriptions
written by those who saw the living dodo
without gleaning much scientific
information. Its habits and diet remain a
mystery, though it is known that the dodo
nested on the ground and laid one egg at a
time. Francois Cauche, a French visitor in
the seventeenth century, said the egg was
the same size as that of the Cape pelican. I
once saw pelicans nesting on an island in
False Bay, but it did not occur to me to
study their eggs. In the same account
Cauche said the egg was the size of a
halfpenny bread roll, though I suspect the
translator of turning the centimes into
English currency. Nowhere else could I
find any details of the eggs, and Cauche' s
evidence is vague and slender.

The story of Miss Courtenay Latimer's
egg is a romance of the sea. This dodo egg
is an heirloom, and it has been in the

possession of her family for more than a
century. Back in the eighteen-forties, and
Mr. L. O. Bean of Port Elizabeth was
pursuing his hobbies of zoology and
botany. He introduced a number of plants
into South Africa, and he was aided in his
activities by Captain van Syker, an owner
and skipper of a sailing vessel trading
among the Indian Ocean islands.

Mr. Bean's daughter Lavinia collected
birds' eggs. One day in 1846 Captain van
Syker told Lavinia that he was calling at
Mauritius and promised to bring her an
egg from there. He returned on January
15, 1847 and handed the delighted girl a
large egg. He had secured it from a
shipwrecked sailor who had settled "on
the island. This man owned two of the
eggs, and he was unwilling to sell them.
However, he owed Captain van Syker
money and he parted with one egg in
settlement of the debt. The sailor told the
captain that it was the egg of a bird which
had been exterminated by Dutch sailors.

The last of the dodos were still waddling
about the more remote parts of Mauritius
in 1681, but there is evidence to show that
by 1693 the whole species had been
exterminated. While I was travelling
about this large island some years ago I
heard a remarkable Creole legend to the
effect that the dodo still lived in the
remote forests high in the mountains of
the interior. But I fear that the dodo will
not be rediscovered in the sensational
manner of the New Zealand huia. The
dodo has been dead for two and a half
centuries.

Lavinia Bean was Miss Latimer's great
aunt. Before she died in 1935 at the age of
ninety-eight she gave the egg to Miss
Latimer; probably the only dodo's egg in
the world.

Of course there have been doubts about
the egg, difficult to refute because of the
absence of other dodo eggs for
comparison. In the scanty literature on the
dodo, old authors mentioned a reputed

dodo egg in a Bordeaux collection, and
two more owned by a Russian naturalist.
These three eggs appear to have vanished
long ago. Miss Latimer has made
inquiries in every possible direction
without even hearing a rumour of another
dodo egg.

Some of the scientists who gathered in
East London in 1945 for the South
African Museums Conference thought the
egg might be an abnormal ostrich egg.
Miss Latimer then set to work to defend
the good name of her heirloom. If you put
an egg under a magnifying glass you can
study the "pitting pattern", which comes
up as clearly as a human thumb-print. She
found that the dodo egg displayed a
"pitting pattern" similar to that of the
pigeon egg, as Dr. Broom had suggested.
Moreover, it was shaped and coloured
more like the pigeon egg than the ostrich
egg. (The dodo, you will remember, was
an ungainly member of the pigeon
family.) Miss Latimer found that the

pitting on her dodo egg was coarse, close
and reddish in colour, whereas all the
ostrich eggs she examined were pitted
sparsely with fine greyish pit holes. She
examined one hundred and twenty-five
abnormal ostrich eggs from a farm, and
another thirty odd abnormal eggs from the
Port Elizabeth Museum. Her dodo egg
remained unique in its pitting pattern,
texture, shape, form and colour.

So I agree heartily with Miss Courtenay
Latimer when she sums up: "In the light
of the evidence supplied and of the history
of this egg, I am satisfied that it is a dodo
egg." The history is convincing. There
have been practical jokes in the world of
science, but there was no reason at all
why Captain van Syker should have
brought an ostrich egg from the island of
the dodo for the daughter of his friend in
Port Elizabeth. And if he had, the
magnifying glass would have revealed the
fake.

Bones of the dodo are not so rare as the
eggs, though they must rank among the
most valuable bones known to science. I
believe the only complete, authentic dodo
skeleton is one which I gazed upon with
awe in the museum at Port Louis, Mauri-
tius. Towards the end of last century a
number of dodo bones were recovered
from a swamp and sent to London.
Experts under Sir Edward Newton at the
British Museum then restored and
mounted two skeletons, one perfect
example for the island museum and
another almost perfect skeleton for
themselves.

A stuffed dodo, which had been decaying
for years in the Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford, was thrown on a bonfire two
centuries ago. Someone saved the head
and a foot, precious relics today. There
are realistic pictures of the dodo, however,
for living dodos were taken to Europe in
the seventeenth century and painted by

Roelandt Savery in Holland and other
artists in England.

Miss Latimer recently acquired a life-size
dodo effigy from the British Museum for
the East London Museum. In the Durban
Museum there is a fairly complete dodo
skeleton. It was in 1919 that Mr. Chubb,
the curator, heard of this skeleton in
private hands in Mauritius. He managed
to buy it for the ridiculous sum of forty
pounds. Between the wars, dodo bones
amounting to about one-third of a
skeleton, were sold in London for two
hundred and fifty pounds. The Durban
skeleton includes the complete tail bones,
the last rib, and the bones of the tiny
wings. It has been valued at more than a
thousand pounds. Interest in the dodo is
proved by the thousands of postcards of
the bird which the museum has sold.
Visitors recall the pictures in "Alice in
Wonderland" when they see the enormous
hooked beak.

This beak, incidentally, is of great
scientific importance, for nothing else like
it exists in the bird kingdom. It must have
evolved as a result of a diet which
demanded strong crushing power. As a
whole, the dodo presents a picture of
laziness and stupidity, and a notice in the
British Museum points the moral: "The
dodo is illustrated here as illustrating quite
a serious principle: that in wild nature the
creature which finds itself in easy
surroundings and allows its powers to fall
into disuse is likely to be exterminated
when faced with new and more exacting
conditions." No wonder the scientific
name for the dodo is Didus ineptus.

Madagascar was another island where the
birds lived too easily. I have already
mentioned the Aepyornis titan, a bird so
large that an ostrich would have been
dwarfed beside it. Sinbad's story of the
fabulous roc, which carried off elephants
to feed its young, may have been based on
the Aepyornis. Strange to say, the

Aepyornis was still alive in the twelfth
century, A.D., and was probably extermi-
nated by Indonesian invaders about that
time. Several nearly complete skeletons
and many fragments have been found.

This monstrous, wingless bird stood over
twelve feet high on its massive legs. The
hunters who killed it may have been brave
men; or perhaps it was a brainless bird
without the deadly kick of the ostrich.
Certainly it laid the largest egg known to
science, equal to one hundred and fifty
hens' eggs.

Shortly before World War II an American
collector secured an Aepyornis egg at a
price which he would not disclose. The
modern story of that egg went back to
1912, when a savage herdsman in the
Tandroy area of Madagascar saw a white
object drifting along a flooded river. He
reached out for it, saw that it was an egg,
and remembered the tribal story of the
mighty bird that had once roamed the
land.

Scientists who examined the scene
decided that after a thousand years the egg
must have been washed out of a
protecting alluvial deposit by the heavy
rains. The finder had given the egg to his
chief, who had taken it to a white trader in
the nearest town and received five head of
cattle in exchange. That immense egg, a
foot long, ten inches across, pockmarked
by sand and insects, went from hand to
hand. Finally a missionary took it to San
Francisco in the hope of raising funds for
his church. He was successful. And the
collector had gained one of the finest
specimens of the Aepyornis egg. But there
are twenty-five other known specimens in
the museums of the world. It is not
unique, like the dodo egg. Since that
discovery French district administrators in
Madagascar have been offering the
natives a reward of ten thousand francs
for every Aepyornis egg they bring in. I
believe one happy man handed over a

perfect fossil egg not long ago and who goes to Mauritius and discovers a

claimed the reward. dodo egg.

Cape Town has an Aepyornis titan egg. It
reposed in the museum cellar for many
years, until a palaeontologist recognised
the value of it and placed it in a showcase.
Museums do not always realise what they
have got. I know a wise old taxidermist
who was serving his apprenticeship in
Scotland when a woman whose husband
was a sailor offered him the skin of a
strange bird for a few shillings. He
refused it, and the skin was thrown away.
That bird lingered in his mind. Years
afterwards he realised that it was a great
auk. The woman had called it a hawk, and
he was not interested in hawks.

No doubt he would have dealt with a dodo
egg in the same way in his youth. But
relics of the queer, extinct birds of the
Indian Ocean islands turn up once in a
lifetime. Fame and fortune await the man

Chapter 19
Queer Behaviour

"Always something new out of
Africa," remarked Pliny the Elder nearly
two thousand years ago. In those days,
and for long afterwards, you could tell
almost any story about Africa, and the
credulous people of Europe would take it
as gospel. Last century, with the growth
of science, came disbelief. And the
pendulum swung too far in that direction.

One of the old tales, certainly more than
three centuries old, dealt with the queer
behaviour of the honey-guide. Some

naturalists of Darwin's time permitted
themselves a polite smile whenever this
thundering lie was told. It turned out to be
true, of course, though the whole mystery
has not yet been solved. I believe that the
last word on the honey-guide may be far
more remarkable than the first.

No doubt you have heard of this drab but
lively bird. Possibly you have seen it
leading human beings to the bees, and.
listened to its insistent, persuasive "Cherr,
cherr!" Sparrman the Swede, who made
so many zoological discoveries at the
Cape, received the credit for describing
the black-throated honey-guide (Indicator
indicator,) now known as Sparrman' s
honey-guide. But he was not the first in
the field.

Father dos Santos, a Portuguese priest
stationed at Sofala towards the end of the
sixteenth century, observed a bird that
often flew into his wooden church. "There
is a kind of birds like canary birds, but
with long tails, which live on wax, and

search in the wild unfilled places for bee-
hives, whereof there are many in holes in
the ground and in hollow trees," Dos
Santos wrote. "When they find a hive with
honey in it they go to the highways in
search of people to lead them to it, which
they do by going before them and crying
and beating their wings from bough to
bough, till they find the hive or bee-hole.
The natives of this land, who know these
birds, as soon as they catch sight of them,
follow them to gather the honey and the
profit that the birds reap from this is that
they eat the small pieces and scrapings of
the wax and honeycomb and the dead
bees that are left behind. These birds are
called by the Africans 'sazu' ; they are of
the same size and almost the same colour
as a goldfinch and have a long tail. Many
times they have come in at the windows
of our church at Sofala, and we have
found them eating the little pieces of wax
left in the candlesticks."

A pretty touch that last one, and one I
want you to remember. The honey -guide
may provide the solution to a medical
mystery, and the wax is important.

I found another early account of the bird
in the work of Father Jeronimo Lobo, the
Jesuit who went to Abyssinia in 1625 as a
missionary. "The moroc or honey-bird is
furnished by nature with a peculiar
instinct or faculty of discovering honey,"
declared Father Lobo. "When the moroc
has discovered any honey he repairs
immediately to the roadside, and when he
sees a traveller, sings and claps his wings,
making many motions to invite him to
follow him; and when he perceives his
coming, flies before him from tree to tree,
till he comes to the place where the bees
have stored their treasure, and then begins
to sing melodiously. The Abyssinian takes
the honey, without failing to leave part of
it for the bird, to reward him for his
information."

Sparrman, who was at the Cape in 1775,
gave a more detailed description, and
proved to be an accurate observer. He was
the first to mention the partnership of the
bird with the ratel or honey badger, the
tough killer which is unfortunately as fond
of sheep as it is of honey. Sometimes the
ratel is able to reach the wild hive and
tear it open with its long nails. When it
fails, it gnaws: and bites the trunk of the
tree in its rage; and Sparrman noted that
the Hottentots found these marks useful
when searching for honey.

It was a great step forward when the
honey-guides decided to lead human
beings, as well as the ratel, to the honey.
For there were few nests which the
natives could not reach, whereas the ratel
must often disappoint the honey-guide.

Sparrman called the honey-guide cuculus
indicator or bee-cuckow. There he was
wrong, though only in recent years have
the naturalists taken the honey-guides out
of the cuckoo family and set them up as

indicatoridae. The mistake arose owing to
the parasitic habits of the honey-guides
(which leave their eggs in the nests of
certain barbets and swallows) and the
structure of the toes, which resemble the
cuckoos. Sparrman reported that the
honey-guide was like the common
sparrow, but was larger, lighter in colour,
with a yellow spot on each shoulder. He
confessed that when he first heard the
story he regarded it as a fable. This view
was strengthened by an experience in
Groot Vaders Bosch in the Swellendam
district, when he accompanied a lad who
followed a honey-guide but failed to
locate any honey. To his surprise, how-
ever, he confirmed the story later.

Morning and evening, Sparrman found,
were the times when the bird showed the
greatest inclination to give forth its
greeting cry of "cherr! cherr! cherr!" and
arouse the attention of the ratel, the
Hottentots and the colonists. When
someone joined the bird it would fly on

slowly towards the plunder, repeating its
cry continually. It was necessary to take
great care not to frighten the bird by any
unusual noise or by going after it in a
crowd. The Bushmen (or "Boshiesman"
of Sparrman's narrative) answered the
bird now and then with a soft and gentle
whistle by way of letting it know that it
was still being followed. When the bees-
nest was far away, the bird made long
hops, waiting for its companion between
each flight and calling to him to come on.
Near the nest the bird repeated its cry
more often and with greater earnestness.
When the human being found the ground
difficult and lagged behind, the bird
would fly back, show its impatience with
redoubled cries, and upbraid its follower
for being so tardy.

"Finally, when it has come to the bees-
nest', whether this be built in the cleft of a
rock, in a hollow tree, or in some cavity in
the earth," Sparrman wrote, "it hovers
over the spot for the space of a few

seconds, a circumstance which I myself
have been eyewitness of twice. After-
wards it sits in silence and for the most
part concealed in some neighbouring tree
or bush in expectation of what may
happen, and with a view to coming in for
a share of the booty."

Several later observers have complained
that the honey-guide often fails to indicate
the exact position of the honey. Sparrman,
however, insisted that the bird always
hovered over the nest before hiding itself.
Moreover, the follower could always; be
sure that the nest was very near when the
bird fell silent.

Sparrman, like Father Lobo, mentioned
the custom of leaving some of the hive as
a reward for the bird. He also noted that
the bird regarded the young bees as the
most delicate morsels, preferring them to
the honey. Sparrman wrote: "I was
informed by my Boshies-men, as well as
by the Colonists, that a man who makes it
his constant business to go after the bees

should not at first be too grateful and
generous to this officious bird, but leave
for it only just as much as will serve to
stimulate its appetite, by which means it
will be induced, in hopes of obtaining a
more liberal reward, to discover another
swarm of bees."

Sparrman wished to shoot a honey-guide
for museum purposes, and promised his
Bushmen glass beads and tobacco if they
would help him. They refused to betray
the bird. "It gave me a great pleasure, as it
showed that these people were in general
possessed of good and grateful hearts,"
Sparrman commented.

One point which Sparrman missed was
the widespread legend suggesting that the
honey-guide is a treacherous little bird
which sometimes leads unsuspecting
humans towards such dangerous creatures
as snakes, lions, leopards or even
elephants. Many believe it to this day, and
they are fortified in their superstition by

the casualties which have occurred now
and then while following the honey-guide.

No doubt the belief arose long ago when
some hard-hearted native cheated the bird
out of its share of the honeycomb. Surely,
it must have been argued, such an
intelligent bird would find some way of
revenge. In the days when wild beasts
were more plentiful the innocent antics of
the honey-guide must have led its
followers into danger now and again. So
the bird was blamed for pure coincidence.

Layard, the Cape Town museum curator a
century ago, accepted this libellous story
at first; but an article he published brought
contradictions from several parts of the
country. Mrs. Barber, an observer in the
Eastern Province, informed Layard that
her nine brothers were all hunters, and not
one of them had known the honey-guide
to act in such a despicable manner. Often
they had startled various creatures of the
forests while following the guide; but the
bird had flown on towards the honey

without taking any notice of the animal
which had been disturbed. One of her
brothers passed through a drove of wild
pigs in dense forest near the Kowie. The
frightened pigs rushed madly in every
direction; but the man, wishing to test the
popular belief, kept his eye on the honey-
guide. The bird went on steadily, giving
out the same call. "There is an alteration
in the notes of the voice when the honey-
guide arrives at the hive," Mrs. Barber
wrote. "The old bee -hunter recognises this
change at once. Now this alteration is
never heard when animals are startled
accidentally."

Nevertheless the legend of the honey-
guide's revenge is told wherever the bird
is found. Livingstone the missionary was
greatly interested in the story, and cross-
examined more than a hundred of his
native carriers on this very point. One
man declared that he had been led to an
elephant; all the others acquitted the bird
of any evil motive. Livingstone summed

up: "I am quite convinced that the
majority of people who commit
themselves to its guidance are led to
honey and to it alone."

I found in the "Grahamstown Journal" for
November 1865 a perfect illustration of
the sort of experience which gave rise to
the old belief. Four white lads were
gathering berries in a kloof outside the
town when they heard the calls of a
honey-guide and followed it. Instead of a
hive they found a puff-adder, which they
killed.

Later the bird called again and they were
led to a cave. The entrance was low, but
they crawled in and lit a fire, probably so
that the smoke would protect them from
the bees they expected to find there.
"Then a savage growl made the cave
tremble," reported the newspaper. "They
saw the fiery eyes and lashing tail of a
leopard a few feet away. Putting the fire
between themselves and the leopard, they
escaped."

Bushmen of the Kalahari make cautious
use of the honey-guide. According to their
folklore, a Bushman followed a honey-
guide to a bush where a lion was
crouching. The Bushman escaped by
throwing his tanned loin cloth to the lion;
but he lost his bow and arrows and quiver.
So now the Bushmen are always on guard
when the bird calls. They follow, but they
look round every bush for lions.

Father Jerome da Sorrento, an early
visitor to the Congo, described the greater
honey-guide and remarked that it
sometimes led the natives to a lion.
Evidently the followers of the guide have
had unhappy encounters in many
territories through the centuries.

A honey-guide will sometimes lead to a
dead animal. Delegorgue, the French
naturalist, observed this habit in South
Africa and declared that the bird became
interested in feeding on the flies and
maggots and forgot the original quest for
honey.

Major E. L. Haydock, an ornithologist
living in Northern Rhodesia, investigated
the allegation of the honey-guide's
treachery. Reliable natives informed him
that when the bird led to a lion or leopard,
the animal was always asleep. Flies
hovering over the animal might be
mistaken for bees by the honey-guide - a
dangerous mistake, but certainly not
deliberate.

Of course it is possible that the follower
might stumble upon a lion and the bees'
nest at the same moment. He would be
more likely to remember the lion than the
bees, and the poor honey-guide would be
blamed.

Certain tribes in Rhodesia relate a piece of
folklore to account for the honey-guide's
habits. The bird went in search of a wife
in Beetown, and the bees first provided
one and then took her away. "All right
then - I shall go and tell tales about you to
all the people who pass along the road,"
threatened the honey guide. And he still

carries out his threat, as the bees know to
their cost.

Bambemba tribesmen of Northern
Rhodesia carry the heart of a honey-guide
with other medicines in a horn when
seeking honey. They will kill honey-
guides only for this purpose, and inflict
severe penalties for wanton killing.

Although the story of the honey-guide and
the ratel is well-established, few white
people have ever seen the two working
together. Doubt has been cast on it owing
to the fact that the ratel is regarded as a
nocturnal animal, whereas the honey-
guide never operates after dusk. However,
it has been proved that the ratel does
come out in daylight, and that it is capable
of climbing trees.

In the Albany Museum, Grahamstown,
there is an unpublished notebook kept by
the celebrated Dr. W. G. Atherstone, the
man who identified the first South African
diamond. A settler named Holden Bowker

informed Dr. Atherstone in 1853 that he
had shot a ratel robbing one of his
beehives placed in a tree twelve feet
above the ground. Bowker added that he
thought the guiding habit of the honey-
guide "probably originated with the ratel,
who climbs trees to get nests and leaves
the comb scattered about where the
Indicator eats either the grub or the wax."

The same valuable notebook records the
experience of a farmer named Oosthuizen
at Bushman's River who once "saw a
ratel following a honey bird and making
the same grunt that a Hottentot does."

Sir Robert Tredgold, Chief Justice of
Southern Rhodesia, is one of the few
living observers who have watched this
partnership. He was at Inyati, forty miles
from Salisbury, when he heard the
grunting of a ratel and the chatter of a
honey-guide. The sounds came closer,
until he was able to identify an adult
honey-guide ( Indicator indicator)
definitely leading a ratel. The ratel kept

responding with a gutteral growl
whenever the bird gave its chatter call.
Unfortunately the ratel caught sight of Sir
Robert and fled, so that the bees' nest
remained untouched.

Haydock collected evidence of honey-
guides calling to baboons and monkeys.
Sometimes the baboons followed, but the
monkeys could never be persuaded.
Haydock also saw a mongoose turning a
deaf ear to the bird. Baboons rob a hive by
making a dash, seizing what honey they
can lay hands on, and then waiting until
the bees have calmed down before raiding
the comb again.

Natives of the Eastern Province say that
when the honey-guide is approaching a
hive it will nod its head in the right
direction and point with its beak. It gives
warning of the presence of a wild animal
by making a whirring noise with its
wings. Zulus call the honey-guide the
"talkative, scolding woman".

Mr. R. B. Woosman, who watched the
honey-guide in the Ngami area of
Bechuanaland, stated that the bird often
came into his camp to find a helper. He
had followed the bird as far as half a mile
before reaching the honey. The bird
would wait until he was within twenty
yards of it and then dart off again. Some-
times a bird would fly into the very tree in
which the hive was situated, perching for
a moment close to the hole and chattering
loudly. Then, as the man came up, the
bird would go into hiding and remain
silent. Mr. Woosman tried to observe the
honey-guide enjoying its reward, but he
was never successful. As long as he was
there the bird kept to its hiding-place.

Sir John Kirk, the Scottish doctor and
naturalist who accompanied Livingstone' s
second expedition, was another keen
observer of the honey-guide. He found
that when a man disappointed the bird by
following for a time and then turning
away, the bird would come back and offer

to point out a different hive in another
area. "It will point to tame bees in a bark
hive as readily as forest bees," Kirk
recorded. "The object the bird has in view
is clearly young bees. It will guide to a
nest containing no honey, and is delighted
with a comb containing the grubs."

It is clear from reports of many observers
that the honey-guide is a dogged,
persistent, nagging little bird. One man
walked deliberately for several miles in
the opposite direction to that indicated,
but the bird kept flying at him, twittering
incessantly. It will circle a wagon with
shrill cries, almost dashing into the face of
the driver.

Apparently the guiding is done only by
the male bird. Mr. C. J. Skead of the
Kaffrarian Museum noted "call sites"
where a male honey-guide took up its post
day after day for certain months every
year. It remained there, whistling "vic-tor!
vic-tor! vic-tor!" so loudly that it could be
heard nine hundred yards away. One bird

relieved another at the site, and females
visited the males stationed there. Strange
behaviour which observers noted at the
call site included "rustle flights". A bird
would fly in circles, making dramatic
upward and downward sweeps, uttering
loud "whurrs" and then diving in
spectacular fashion back to its perch. No
one has accounted for this display.

Tough skins and inner eyelids protect the
honey-guides from bee-stings. (The ratel,
too, has a skin which is hard to penetrate.)
A peculiarity of the young honey-guide is
the pair of hooks on the end of the bill.
These drop off in the course of time; and
there is a theory that the purpose is to grip
and eject unwanted birds from the nest.

By the way, there is a point to remember
if ever you follow the honey-guide and
loot a comb of wild honey. This honey
differs to some extent from "tame" honey
in that it raises a tremendous thirst. Eat
sparingly, and see that your water-bottle is
full.

Sparrman drew attention to a mystery
which has not yet been solved. He said
that while there were plenty of wild bees
round about Cape Town, the honey-guide
in the Peninsula did not indicate the hives.
People in Cape Town knew nothing of the
bird or its peculiar habits.

Dr. J. M. Winterbottom, author of recent
field handbooks on South African birds,
told me that Sparrman' s statement still
held good. Sparrman' s honey-guide and
the lesser honey-guide were both found in
the Cape Peninsula, but no one had
reported guiding habits.

It seems that the honey-guide is moved to
act as guide only in natural forests. It must
have guided Van Riebeeck's men in the
very early days, when the Peninsula was
heavily wooded. Later it gave up the
habit. There are still patches of forest,
such as Kirstenbosch, where the honey-
guide has been identified; but the
unmistakable guiding call is heard no
more.

Dr. Herbert Friedmann, curator of birds at
the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C., has an explanation of
this mystery. He is the greatest living
authority on the honey-guides, and has
followed the birds in many parts of
Southern Africa. He has put forward a
theory of "associative memory". At
various times the honey-guide observes
animals and men opening the nests of the
wild bees and eating the honey. In the
course of time it comes to associate the
sight of these animal and human raiders
with bees' nests; and so at last the bird
appears to be excited whenever it sees the
honey gatherers.

Now suppose you go to an area (such as
the Cape Peninsula) where the ratel does
not exist and man has long ago given up
the search for wild honey. The honey-
guide cannot possibly associate animals or
humans with bees in such areas, and so it
does not guide. There must be continuity.
In less civilised areas the natives help to

arouse the "associative memory" of the
bird, imitating the grunt of the ratel and
hitting the trees as though they were
chopping open the bees' nests. Such help
is not essential, however, as the birds
often approach the humans without any
invitation.

Friedmann does not credit the honey-
guide with any purpose or the ability to
plan. Many examples of one animal
attracting another of a different species in
a feeding relationship are to be found in
the world of nature. The European robin
approaches certain animals, and humans,
in the hope that they will scare up insects.
Like the honey-guide, it has displaced
wild mammals by humans. The change is
not so dramatic as it appears to the
onlookers. And the behaviour of the
honey-guide, which seems to be so
intelligent, is really on an instinctive level.

According to Friedmann, the honey-guide
may or may not know where it is going.
One careful observer followed a honey-

guide for more than four miles, measuring
the circuitous route afterwards. He found
honey all right, but the nest was only half
a mile from the point where the bird had
first called to him. Obviously the bird was
gambling on the chance of sighting bees.

My friend Walter Hoesch, companion on
a scientific expedition into the Kaokoveld,
author of the standard work on the birds
of South West Africa, has a theory of his
own about the honey-guide. He thinks that
ages ago the honey-guide learnt to regard
the bees as enemies, because of their
stings. Thus the bird gives warning to this
day of the presence of wild animals,
snakes - and bees ! In guiding men to these
enemies, the honey-guide hoped to see the
enemies eliminated. The honey and the
comb were mere details in which the bird
was not greatly interested.

Hoesch' s theory is not accepted by other
ornithologists. Nevertheless, it is a fact
that the honey-guides could not live on
the honeycomb, wax and dead bees which

are left after they have led their followers
successfully to a hive. They have other
ways of securing wax and other insects to
keep themselves going.

Hoesch points out that birds usually lead
humans away from something -
especially from their nests or their young.
He emphasises the strangeness of a bird
reversing the process and leading towards
something. In his long career as bird-
watcher he can remember only one other
example; when two rollers led him with
cries of excitement to a genet caught in a
trap. Hoesch holds the view that the
behaviour of the honey-guide was
originally due to a state of excitement
caused by a dangerous enemy, and that
this excitement made it lead the human
towards that enemy.

Africa has nine species of honey-guide,
some extremely rare. All nine species
have been located in the Belgian Congo.
Friedmann believes that the family dates
back to the time when the forest animals

of Africa and India were more closely
related. (There is evidence of a land
bridge, now submerged, in the Indian
Ocean.) One species of honey-guide is
found in the Himalayas and another in the
East Indies. These oriental birds, however,
do not seem to exhibit the guiding
impulse. The origin of the honey-guide is
still a riddle. Although it is of great
antiquity in Asia, it is possible that the
bird evolved in Africa.

Among the Congo species is the lyre-
tailed honey-guide, which is so rare that
museum collectors were unable to secure
a single specimen between 1915 and
1941. This bird makes a nasal "tooting"
noise. Observers heard the call occasion-
ally, but could not catch a glimpse of the
bird. Mambuti pygmies knew it and called
it amazeke; but though they were great
hunters of honey, they declared that the
bird had never helped them.

The lyre-tailed honey-guide dives noisily
out of the sky with tail spread, uttering

siren-like notes. Natives in Gabun trapped
a female at last for the American Museum
of Natural History. They used honeycomb
bait.

It is thought that the honey-guides of the
Congo have not yet reached the stage of
calling on man as an accomplice. They
may be using squirrels and monkeys.

Rarest of all the honey-guides, perhaps, is
Wahlberg's sharp billed honey-guide.
This has been recorded in Abyssinia, in
West Africa, and on a few occasions in
South Africa; but the late Dr. Austin
Roberts, a great field ornithologist, only
saw it once in his life, in a Pretoria
garden. The bird utters a "zeet zeet" cry in
flight. It is probably a migrant.

Do you remember the honey-guides that
flew into the church at Sofala centuries
ago and ate the wax from the
candlesticks? Friedmann discovered in the
honey-guide's stomach a digestive
process which may lead to a new method

of treating tuberculosis. The bird is
obviously able to digest beeswax with
very great ease.

Dr. Friedmann asked himself whether this
process might not be adapted to dissolve
the waxy coating which makes the
tuberculosis bacillus so hard to conquer.

Research at Washington has proved that
the honey-guide possesses two micro-
organisms in the intestinal tract. Now
these birds are parasitic, as we have seen.
They cannot acquire the micro-organisms
from their parents or foster parents; thus
they must pick them up from the wild
honeycomb. Analysis of the comb has
revealed the organisms. One day, perhaps,
the noisy little honey-guide will be the
hero of a fresh advance in the treatment of
tuberculosis.

Chapter 20

Secrets Of Solitude

ONCE I spent a month on a lonely isle,
hoping that someone would tell me the
secrets of that solitude. On the last day I
walked along the highest ridge, three
peaks in swirling mist, peaks still clothed
with ferns and gumwood and cabbage
trees. I thought that I had torn the heart
out of the place. From this primeval forest
the island looked more dramatic than
ever, a landscape of basalt needles and
volcanic precipices, giving a feeling of
insecurity. Dutch settlers knew this place

well, and in their day it was covered with
forest. Some of the trees and plants were
found nowhere else in the world. A few
rarities are still there, but man and the
goats have taken most of them. The ocean
is empty, for there is no land closer than
seven hundred miles, and Africa is more
than a thousand miles to the east. You
have your bearings now? This is, perhaps,
the oldest land mass on the face of the
globe. Darwin revelled in it. These queer
plants, the living insects and fossils, are
links in the chain of creation. This is St.
Helena, a fragment left in mid-ocean from
the wreck of ancient world. "No other
spot in the world is of such interest to the
naturalist," wrote the scientist Melliss.

Always my imagination has been gripped
more firmly by the solitudes than the
cities. I am no hermit, and often enough I
long for remembered pleasures in Europe
and the Americas. Yet always there comes
a time when I find myself planning
another journey to some far and lonely

place. In solitude, perhaps, we are more
likely to discover what is within us. Yes,
one finds wisdom in solitude, and a
philosophy of life which the pavement
crowds might not understand.

So now I was leaving another solitude.
Many of my island friends were on board
the Union Castle ship which took me
away. They were different; happier and
more excited than ever I had seen them on
shore. In the liner's shop they were like
children, buying avidly all those little
things which were unknown in St.
Helena's shops. They chatted over their
drinks vivaciously, and because I was
going away they told me island secrets
they had never mentioned to me before.
Certainly they enjoyed the ship's dinner
of many courses, and the cinema on the
aft deck. Once a month they took their
dose of this exhilarating tonic, once a
month when the liner called, and it
seemed to me that there were some who

would have fared badly without it. But
what nostalgia did the tonic arouse?

Full moon at St. Helena that night, and for
a long time I stood at my porthole gazing
at the cliffs, the threatening, stupendous
cliffs. Sometime in the night the anchor
came up. It was farewell to Rock Rose
and Rose Hill, Old Woman's Valley and
Warren's Gut, Lazy Point and Bencoolen,
Farm Lodge and Friar's Valley. And I lay
there thinking of the day I had seen this
lonely isle for the first time.

Fires were blazing along the water's edge
from Prosperous Bay to Lemon Valley as
my ship came round the steep coastline
before dawn. These were the fires of the
weekend fishermen who descend the bare
and sombre precipices for a thousand,
fifteen hundred feet with spikes and ropes
to hook the conger eel, mackerel, silver
fish and the delicious bull's-eye for their
families. A risky game, especially when
the men climb homewards with their
sacks loaded. But they need the food, and

the St. Helena fish species are among the
finest in the world.

At first glance St. Helena makes you
shudder. (I had the same forebodings as I
approached the still more remote island of
Tristan da Cunha many years ago.)
Seldom do the high, bird-haunted cliffs of
St. Helena open to reveal the soft, rich
farmlands, the quiet cottages and sedate
mansions of the interior. It seems a prison,
though behind the steep walls there is a
little, isolated district of forty-seven
square miles which has the charm of the
old English countryside; the charm of last
century, when a cottage was a true
sanctuary.

As your ship comes up to the north-west
coast anchorage off Jamestown you begin
to observe the real St. Helena. Jamestown
holds more of the strong meat of history, I
think, than any other town in Britain's
colonial possessions. You sense history in
the old gun emplacements and powder
magazines along the waterfront; in the

seventeenth-century English castle with
its moat, barring the valley. It is a scene
already familiar to every collector who
has studied the island's pictorial stamps.

Facing the town you behold a sheer
precipice on each side, Munden's Hill on
the east, Ladder Hill on the west. At sea
level these hills open out to one-fifth of a
mile, and the gap is filled by the sea wall
and the Castle battlements. Over the old
parapet you see the St. James's Church
spire, with a metal fish instead of a
weathercock. You glimpse the town in the
narrow, triangular valley, white houses
and great trees. Gaze long enough, and
you are sure to see someone coming down
the famous Jacob's Ladder of seven
hundred steps linking the valley with the
higher parts of the island.

"It's a noice lil oiland sir - but only us
needs a bit more money." My boatman
told me that in the nasal island twang
while he was rowing me to the wharf. It is
a fair summary of St. Helena from the

Jamestown holds more of the strong meat of history, I think than any other town in Britain's eolonial

possesions.

islander's point of view, and a good
example of island speech.
I declared a bottle of French brandy and a
bottle of sherry which I had bought at low
sea prices on board the Union-Castle ship.
"You're allowed one bottle free," smiled
the Customs officer. "I'll charge you on
the wine, because the duty is lower." I
thought that was a pleasant welcome to
the island. Then I drove to my hotel in
Main Street.

At first glance, the Consulate Hotel in
Jamestown gives no hint of the exotic
meals which are daily contrived for its
guests. True, the islander who leases the
old building, Mr. George Moyce, has a
girth which is obviously a tribute to the
work of his wife and the cook, Mrs.
Richards, in the old-fashioned kitchen.
The hotel is a relic of the days of St.
Helena's glory. The atmosphere reminded
me vaguely, for some reason, of
Schomberg's Hotel, the queer place in
Surabaya which Joseph Conrad described

so well in "Victory". Schomberg's had a
garden, with large trees. And the
Consulate has avocado pears and paw-
paw, lemons and oranges, mango and
banana trees growing in the courtyard;
and a little beer garden with oil-drums
serving as tables and asters and geraniums
in tins. Fowls and chickens roam among
the tables.

Moyce, wearing singlet and white shorts,
led me round the hotel. When he stepped
out on to the rickety balcony overlooking
Main Street I feared an accident; but he
knew his own weight and avoided the
weak planks. Moyce also sketched his
career from the time he left the island as a
cabin-boy during World War I. He had
served as cook in the old cable ship
Britannia, and risen to chief steward of the
cable mess on Ascension Island. Now he
was giving the experience of a lifetime of
catering to the Consulate guests.

"Why the Consulate?" I asked Moyce and
many others on the island, but no one

could give me a convincing answer. It had
been an hotel, under different names, for a
long time and there was no record of a
consul ever having lived there. Some said
that (like Schomberg's) it had once been a
brothel, but that was almost inevitable in a
town which had known as many sailors as
Jamestown. Let me hasten to add that
during all this century at least the
Consulate has had a blameless reputation.
Only on days when the mail boat calls are
the police brought in occasionally to
remove a ship's steward from the bar.

George Moyce's bar looks after itself
most of the time. You will always find a
dozen bottles of beer on the counter, and
some gin and a bitters shaker under the
counter. Everyone knows the prices. Just
help yourself and leave the money in the
ash-tray. As you drink, you are at liberty
to ponder over the wisdom of the framed
motto that Moyce has provided for his
patrons: "Don't marry for money, you can
borrow it cheaper."

I never found any of the Chambertin, the
famous burgundy that Napoleon loved, in
the Consulate cellar; or the Bordeaux
claret that was his second choice. I had to
be content with a dry white wine from the
Cape; which reminded me that Napoleon
found consolation during his last days in a
glass of Constantia and a biscuit.

Along one side of the courtyard at the
Consulate runs a wooden gallery, as shaky
as the front balcony. Nevertheless, this is
the gangway to the bathrooms. Every
morning I found Moyce feeding dry
banana leaves into the furnaces of the
geysers. One morning, looking over the
side of my bath, I observed that the
oilcloth on the bathroom floor had moved.
Through a hole the size of a saucer I could
spy Mrs. Richards, in the kitchen below,
frying eggs and bacon.

It is hard to discover a restful sofa or
armchair at the Consulate, for the
furniture all goes back to a period which
was neither comfortable nor artistic.

Passages are dark. The whole hotel is
noisy, and I am not referring now to the
tomcats that give battle at midnight in
Main Street, or the calling of the mynah
birds at dawn. Yet I liked the Consulate.
George Moyce charged only four guineas
a week, an incredible rate in November
1954, and that may have had something to
do with it. But that was not the whole
story. There was a pleasant atmosphere
about the place, and I began to appreciate
it on the first day, when I sat down to a
good lunch of deep water jack, island
lamb, roast potatoes, cabbage, peas and
bananas.

I was served mainly by children. Marion,
the shy, pretty, light skinned waitress,
could not have been more than fourteen.
Small boys made my bed and brought
jugs of hot water to my room. Moyce
looked after the bathroom geysers
himself. I think he knew that the small
boys would have blown up the hotel for
him.

Often in the afternoon I would hear
cheerful sounds in the courtyard. There
would be a retired Indian Army officer
bowling, one of the small boys of the
hotel batting, and Mrs. Richards and
Marion sitting on a bench outside the
kitchen watching the game. Moyce was
always too busy to take part. He had a
small soda and lemonade factory and a
photographic business opening off the
courtyard. Farther down Main Street he
had just taken a house and turned it into a
billiard and ping-pong saloon. He owned
two cars which were for hire. He had also
bought a travelling cinema so that he
could take the talkies to the far corners of
the island. And he had the first shop in
Jamestown, on the right after you have
crossed the moat and passed through the
old gateway.

I called on Moyce in his shop one day, out
of curiosity, to see what he could offer.
That was the only shop I ever visited
where new-laid eggs were displayed on

the counter in a shining enamel chamber.
Moyce was frying fish rissoles for the
Saturday trade, when the country people
come into town to do their shopping. You
cannot go far in Jamestown without
encountering fish in some form or other.

One shop in Jamestown I shall always
remember is Mrs. George's pharmacy in
Market Street. Her husband died in 1899,
after only two years of marriage. "I had to
carry on the business without any training,
and the doctor helped me," said Mrs.
George. "Every time I made up a
prescription I went about it as carefully as
though I was baking a cake, and I never
poisoned anyone." Mrs. George, at eighty-
six, was still sitting at a table in front of
the old-fashioned, massive counter when I
called. She stared at the huge bottles of
green and red liquid which were there in
her husband's day, and the dozens of
drawers and bottles of old drugs,
untouched for decades. I left her weighing

out sixpence worth of boracic powder for
a fisherman. She had courage.

Most historians, scientists and other
authors of St. Helena literature pay little
or no attention to the islanders. It is
surprising to find that even the authors of
standard works on St. Helena such as J. C.
Melliss and Philip Gosse give little space
to the people.

I came to regard the St. Helena people as
one of the most fascinating of the small,
isolated races I have encountered. People
who know the island will agree with me, I
think, when I say that these islanders form
the most friendly and pleasant coloured
race on earth.

When the less educated islanders are
talking among themselves it is often
impossible to follow a word of it. Through
the centuries they have built up a fast-
spoken English dialect more formidable
than anything heard in the British Isles,
and understood only by St. Helenans.

People landing on the island for the first
time listen to this gibberish in wonder and
ask: "What language do they talk here?"
When they are informed that it is English,
and that the islanders have never spoken
any other language, they will not believe
it.

Governor Harford spoke to me of the St.
Helena people as "coloured English". An
earlier official described them as "English
by race, environment and upbringing". He
added that they ranked as though born in
England, and that English was the only
language spoken on the island. I agree
with the spirit of these assertions, but they
are not entirely correct in detail.

Melliss, back in the 'seventies of last
century, wrote of the islanders as people
of Portuguese, Dutch, English, Malay,
East Indies and Chinese descent. He was a
botanist rather than a historian. Neither
the Portuguese nor the Dutch left anyone
behind when they abandoned the island.
All sorts of people, including Malagasy

and Chinese, have gone into the island
melting pot, but the predominant blend is
British and Indian. Possibly a hundred of
the present-day islanders have such light
complexions that even in South Africa
their European status would not be
questioned. But the smiling island faces
vary in colour from white to negroid
blackness. There is an African strain
which goes back to the slave days.
Marriages between islanders and African
slaves were rare, however, and the typical
African darkness, woolly hair and negro
features are uncommon.

Slavery came to St. Helena soon after
1659, when the English East India
Company sent an expedition very much
like Van Riebeeck's enterprise of the
same period. Ships of the English
Company sailed to Madagascar for slaves,
and every such vessel calling at St. Helena
was obliged to leave one slave male or
female as the Governor chose. Dr. John
Fryer of Cambridge found four hundred

English men, women and children there
when he called towards the end of the
seventeenth century. Posters appeared on
London hoardings urging people to settle
in this island paradise; and among those
who responded were some victims of the
Great Fire of London. Shiploads of young
women were recruited, and they were
promised a free return passage to England
"unless otherwise disposed of after one
year. But it was a long time before the
settlers and their descendants became
reconciled to island life. Dampier the
buccaneer wrote: "Several of our men
were head and ears in love with the Santa
Hellena maids, who tho' they were born
there, yet very earnestly desired to be
released from that prison. The young
women are but one remove from English,
being the daughters of such. They are well
shaped, proper and comely, were they in a
dress to set them off."

West African negroes did not reach St.
Helena in any numbers until 1840, when

the Vice-Admiralty Court was set up for
the trial of slavers. Three depots were
established for "liberated Africans" as
they were called. Employers on the island,
farmers and merchants, engaged a number
of ex-slaves of both sexes. Many liberated
Africans went on to the West Indies
where there was a labour shortage. Others
became so fond of their St. Helena
employers that they remained on the
island. A number assumed the names of
their masters, according to slave custom.
You also find many typical slave names to
this day; the Scipios and Catos of
Longwood, the Caesars of Sandy Bay, an
Augustus here and Mercury there.
Pompey appears to have died out.
Wellington, an ex-slave who lived until
the end of last century, was a famous
cook, and so tall that he was nicknamed
Duke of Wellington. There was a Lord
Nelson, too, and a Waterwitch who took
the name of the ship which released him
from slavery. Melliss said that by 1875

the ex-slaves formed one-sixth of the total
population. Nevertheless, they did not mix
with the islanders, and in three decades
only six intermarriages were recorded.

There was an agricultural show soon after
my arrival, and I saw the luscious island
vegetables set out in booths made of wild
ginger and bamboo. There, too, I listened
to the dialect as the enthusiastic people
went from one exhibit to another: School
children had filled a stall with flowers and
vegetables they had grown, and I was just
able to follow one father who declared:
"Don't ferget the young people. This, the
young people's done it. I see they got it
good and snug. They're only young, see."

Then there was the boy of about thirteen
who remarked to his companions: "Us go
look for bull bull."

A schoolmaster from England told me that
the island dialect is less grammatical than
most dialects, with a limited vocabulary.
Few people are unable to read and write

nowadays, but the standard of literacy is
low. Even on this small island, the
districts have their own accents;
Jamestown is different from Longwood,
and Blue Hill from Sandy Bay. Islanders
declare that each district has also
produced its own physical types, and that
they can tell at a glance where any person
was born on the island. Certainly the hard-
working country people are quiet and
simple. They are credited with greater
honesty than the townsfolk. I cannot see
how this is possible, for no report of any
form of theft committed during the month
I was in Jamestown reached my ears.

Everyone notices the way St. Helena
islanders use the Sam Weller accent
transposing "V" and "W" like the
Cockney from Dickens. "She vore a
weil," I heard one woman say. Possibly
this peculiarity goes back all the way to
the homeless Cockney settlers who went
to St. Helena after the Great Fire of

London. There is also a touch of Devon in
the mixed speech of this mixed race.

Two old women were quarrelling in a
back street in Jamestown. One poured out
abuse, the other listened and then had her
say. "Is you done done? Veil, all what you
says I is, you is."

A resident who was born and educated in
England and had spent sixty years in St.
Helena told me that the islanders had
become far more fluent and less shy
during his years on the island. When he
first arrived, he was conscious of being
watched from behind doors and shutters.
He could imagine them talking after he
had passed. "Who dat? Who it is? What
he say? What he done? "

Education has taken away most of the
rawness. They have moved on, decade
after decade, away from slavery. Most of
the master and slave complex is
vanishing, though many islanders still
appear to be afraid to express an opinion.

And they are so used to saying "sir" and
"ma'am" that they use the term among
themselves, in their own way. Often a girl
will address an older woman as "sir".

Occasionally they invent words, with
amusing results. A newcomer entered into
an agreement with an islander about some
work to be done, and suggested putting it
into writing. "All right," said the islander,
"only I'll leave the wordification to you."

One island phrase that will always linger
in my mind is the rendering of "in the old
days". They all say: "In the before days."

Among the poorest class, such as the
fishermen, you can still hear the
unadulterated St. Helena lingo. Here is an
impression of a fisherman talking to a
visitor on the wharf: "Dere was stunting
say bout Govinmint ought to send for nets
and men to sho how to ketch fish. Tcha!
man, foolish ... us can ketch fish better
den orrer fellers. You know, sir, when us
get gude luck and plentee fish and tinks

for once will get couple shillings dem
wimmin in fish market stick up fer price.
When peepil see plentee fish and price
high they buy little tinking bum-bye
cheap. Us poor fishmin get werry little."

A noteworthy achievement is the
"shouting language" which the islanders
have evolved to make their voices carry to
the limit across the deep valleys. "Ahoy!"
is the calling up sign. The system is found
in a different form on Gomera in the
Canaries, where the islanders whistle
messages over the valleys.

St. Helena is an island of nicknames. This
is inevitable where so many people bear
the same surnames; but the island
nicknames have a humour of their own. I
met men called Conger-Kidneys, Fish-
cakes, Candles, Bo'sun, Biffer and
Bumper. Dollar Clark came to the hotel to
cut my hair. Cheese Thomas is a member
of a cricket team. Thomas is the surname
most often encountered in St. Helena, and
one member of the family remarked to

me: "T'row a stone an' you hit a
Thomas." There is a girl called Pumpkin
and a man known as Blossom. When a
husband gains a nickname, it is liable to
be applied to all the rest of the family.
Thus you find Jack o' Clubs Benjamin out
for a walk with his wife Gertie Clubs and
his son Cyril Clubs. I also remember a
deaf mute, the best plumber on the island,
known as Dumb Boy.

Belief in witchcraft and the "evil eye"
survives in St. Helena as it does in remote
English villages. Superstition is found in
many shapes. Farm hands still peer into
bowls of water in the hope that the faces
of their enemies will be revealed.

The great Charles Darwin liked the
islanders and their gentle ways, but
deplored their diet of rice with a little salt
meat. "The low wages tell heavily on the
poor people," he remarked. Rice has
become a luxury on St. Helena now, and
the diet has changed to fish and potatoes,

bread and tea, with a variety of local
dishes for special occasions.

St. Helena began parting sorrowfully with
her sons soon after that evil day when the
generous Honourable East India
Company, which had ruled for nearly two
centuries, handed over the island to the
British Government. In the economy cam-
paign which followed, old servants of the
Company lost their incomes and the time
came when former senior officers could
be seen tilling the soil beside their old
negro servants to keep body and soul
together. As far back as 1838 the first
body of islanders emigrated to the Cape.
Hundreds followed from time to time until
a few years ago, when the Union
Government refused to admit any more
islanders.

In the whaling days many islanders
shipped as seamen in the American
"spauters". Some found new homes in
New Bedford and other whaling ports,
and became prosperous American

business men. The legacies they left to
poor relations in St. Helena were greatly
appreciated. More recently some young
men and hundreds of girls have settled in
Britain. The men seem to be drawn back
to the island more often than the women.

I was told that no coloured islander had
ever gained a university degree. Through
sheer lack of opportunity, no St. Helenan
has become a doctor. In business the
honest islanders are seen at their best. All
over the island you find little grocery
shops, stocked with South African tinned
fish and English biscuits and jams. Not
long ago an old grocer died intestate.
They were searching his tiny shop for a
will when they discovered fifteen
thousand golden sovereigns. This island
keeps its secrets.

St. Helena has its old families with
remarkable histories, but there are very
few survivors of the seventeenth century
settlers. You find the old names on the
map, of course; Francis Plain where all

the islanders meet for sport and
agricultural shows; Lufkin's Towers, now
the official home of the island's surgeon;
Billy Birch precipice where the old settler
of that name was killed; Chubb' s Spring
which supplies Jamestown; Seale's Flat,
Hunt's Gutt and Cason's Gate. I believe
there is still a Bagley, however,
descendant of the Orlando Bagley who, in
1694 was foreman of the jury which tried
the black slaves who had conspired to kill
all the white people on the island.

Fortunes have been made by St. Helena
islanders, men who had never seen the
world beyond their own cliffs. Perhaps the
Thorpe family is the most astounding
example of business ability flourishing on
a lonely island.

The original Thorpe appears to have been
a Yorkshireman who arrived in St. Helena
about the middle of last century as a
private soldier and married an island
woman of Indian or Malay descent. The
old soldier died a poor man, but his son

William amassed a large fortune. He had
ten sons and two daughters. Four sons still
live in St. Helena, but not one of them
could tell me how their father took the
first step towards wealth. This is a gap
with which I am perfectly familiar, for it
occurs in the lives of most wealthy men.
No one knows how they made the first
thousand pounds. Yet I can hazard a
guess.

Down on the Jamestown waterfront, when
William Thorpe was a young man, they
were breaking up old wooden slave ships
which had been captured by the Royal
Navy. These ships were sheathed in
copper plates, and a great deal of this
scrap metal came into Thorpe's posses-
sion. William Thorpe next bought up two
sailing ships which arrived at St. Helena
in distress. Thus he secured the ship for a
few hundred pound instead of many
thousands.

One of them was the French barque
Meridian. She was patched and sent to

Ascension Island to load guano. There is a
little rock called Boatswain Bird Islet at
Ascension, and this was covered with
thousands of tons of guano. Thorpe had
seventy men at work for months scraping
off this valuable deposit. Then the
Meridian sailed on to London where ship
and cargo were sold. Guano was fetching
twelve pounds a ton at that time. The
other ship, Royal Harry, had been
condemned; yet when Thorpe sent her off
to the West Indies to load coconuts she
hardly made an inch of water all the way.
She, too, was sold at a high price.
Meanwhile a dispute which had arisen
between Thorpe and the British Admiralty
over the guano concession was settled
with an award to Thorpe of sixty thousand
pounds.

Thorpe sent two of his sons to sea before
the mast. He preferred to spend most of
his own life in St. Helena, where all his
ventures turned to gold. Once he financed
a tramway scheme in Japan, however, and

made a huge profit. He also fitted out the
schooner Alert to trade with ships which
would otherwise have passed St. Helena
without buying anything. Thorpe's
schooner carried fresh meat, vegetables
and eggs; and the ships he intercepted
often broached their cargoes in their
eagerness to secure such luxuries. Thus
the schooner returned with bags of
Australian grain and other cargoes worth
many times the value of the fresh
provisions.

William Thorpe's long life ended in
tragedy about a quarter of a century ago.
He had quarrelled with one of his sons,
and he was walking home in a blind rage
when he fell over a cliff. His will
contained peculiar clauses, and he insisted
upon the wives of his sons spending half
their time on St. Helena or losing certain
portions of the huge estate. I was told that
three of his sons inherited £140,000; and
there is no taxation worth mentioning on
the island.

The sons, I am bound to add, chose
orthodox careers of unquestionable
honesty. One who came off badly in the
matter of his legacy introduced the first
cinema into St. Helena. He now organises
the parties of St. Helena girls who leave
by every mail boat to go into domestic
service in England. Lovely estates with
fine old homes, in and out of Jamestown;
are owned by surviving Thorpe brothers.
One of them is a great traveller who has
seen the world and is now spending his
old age in his island home.

Napoleon once remarked that the only
good thing about St. Helena was the
coffee. It is admirable coffee; but I
discovered a number of other good things
which the unhappy Emperor must have
enjoyed before his health failed. There
ought to be a St. Helena cookery book by
some exiled Mrs. Beeton, marooned on
this fragrant crumb of earth and making
the best of it magnificently. As no one
seems to have said much about the food

since Napoleon's day I will give you my
impressions of this lonely island larder
and the cuisine which put three pounds on
my weight while I was there.

Van Linschoten the Dutchman, towards
the end of the sixteenth century, wrote of
the "great abundance of fish, a wonder
wrought by God, for with crooked nails
they may take as much fish as they will,
and is of as good taste and savour as any
fish that I ever ate, and this every man that
hath been there affirmeth to be true."

Long ago some of the St. Helena
fishermen lived with their wives and
children like wild creatures in remote
caves in the cliffs. Nowadays the
professionals are all off-shore fishermen,
using double-ended whale boats of the old
Nantucket pattern or squaresterned gigs.
Visiting experts have declared that St.
Helena is an angler's paradise; for the
great yellow-fin tunny run in these waters
and a boat may bring in dozens in a day.
Three crack South African anglers led by

General Charles Brink landed nearly eight
tons of game fish with rod and line during
twenty days fishing. You have to go three
or four miles off-shore to the west of the
island for tunny. The island fishermen
catch them on twenty -one strand hemp
lines; and these lines are coiled skilfully.
No man moves when a tunny line is
whipping out of the boat, for a foul line
with a hooked tunny is capable of taking
off a man's hand or foot. The record St.
Helena tunny weighed four hundred
pounds and was eight feet long.

I doubt whether Sir Hudson Lowe would
have allowed Napoleon out in the boats,
but many a grand fish must have been sent
up to Longwood for the French chefs to
prepare. Some say that the deep-water
bull's-eye with its huge eyes like targets
and crimson skin is the most delicate of
the everyday island fish. I had it boiled,
with egg sauce, and I shall never forget it.
But there is a rare fish known as the coal
fish, with dark skin and flesh. This is

brought in only once or twice a year, and
usually goes to Government House. Years
ago a solitary fisherman named George
Harry used to boast that he could bring in
a coal fish any time anyone would pay the
price. Unfortunately he died without
revealing his marks, so that now there are
few on the island who have tasted the
rich, steamed flesh of the coal fish
accompanied by Tartare sauce.

Tunny is common enough to become
monotonous, but the islanders never tire
of it. They call it albacore, and make a
soup of it with onion, potato, parsley,
thyme and chilli. ("Never leave the chilli
out of a St. Helena dish," the island cooks
tell you.) The most familiar method is a
pot-roast, when great cuts of tunny are
stuffed with parsley, breadcrumbs and
egg. Served with a brown, tomato or
onion gravy, the tunny cooked in this way
tastes more like meat and is indeed called
"St. Helena beef. Tunny liver fried in

Tunny is common enough to become monotonous, but the islanders never tire of it.

deep fat has nothing fishy about it and
strongly resembles calves' liver.

"Albacore now - I calls that a good
straight-eating fish," an islander said to
me. He meant it was easy to avoid the
bones. Island cooks also make "albacore
balls" (tunny rissoles) by mincing the raw
fish, adding herbs and bacon and mashed
potatoes, and frying until golden. These
rissoles are packed carefully in tins and
sent to homesick St. Helenans in many
parts of the world. Tunny are also
preserved by dry-salting and smoking
with the aid of oak leaves or fine sawdust.
According to island superstition, however,
your face will turn red and swell if you eat
dried albacore which has been hung in the
rays of the moon.

Wahoo, which appear to be exactly like
the Florida wahoo, is another sporting fish
caught in St. Helena waters. These slate
blue fish, running up to one hundred and
forty pounds, often leap clear of the water
when hooked, rush away at speed and put

up a tremendous fight. On the island the
wahoo is always known as barracuda, a
pardonable error as there is a strong
superficial resemblance. Wahoo are
cooked like tunny, but they are more
expensive and are called "white man's
fish" by the islanders.

Another good fish which the poor
islanders seldom taste is the cavally,
nicknamed "St. Helena salmon". Mrs. F.
Oswell Jones, custodian of the Jamestown
library and a noted cook, told me that
cavally should be partly fried, then placed
in a pot with onion, parsley, a sprig of
thyme and chilli, almost covered with
water and steamed. Butter is added before
serving.

The common fish of St. Helena are
mackerel and bonito. Mackerel are
soused, and the cask helps many a
poverty-stricken family through lean
times. Bonito are so voracious that a
fisherman can haul in a hundred in an
hour at the Jamestown anchorage. They

are fried, or eaten as rissoles. Sun-dried
bonito are useful in hard times.

Flying fish are often chased ashore by
porpoises, but you will never see them on
sale in the Jamestown market. It is a
favourite island delicacy. Here is a recipe
Mrs. Jones gave me. Fry herbs and
potatoes and add a dessert spoon of curry
powder. Cut the flying fish in thin strips,
place it on the curry mixture in a sauce-
pan, cover and steam. Add salt. Keep
turning it over and chopping it with a
spoon. This dish is known on the island as
"flying fish chutney". Incidentally, the
deep-seated love of curries, chillies, and
all hot and highly-spiced foods reveals the
eastern element in the St. Helena people.

By the way, those fires I noticed coming
up to the island at night were lit not only
to lure the fish inshore but also to enable
the hungry fishermen to cook their meals.
On flat rocks below the frightening
precipices they make their driftwood fires
and put their "plow pots" in the flames.

"Plow" appears to be an island corruption
of pilau, the oriental dish of rice with
meat and spices. The pot is a twenty-eight
pound margarine tin in which the fisher-
man cooks rice, potatoes, a little bacon or
salt pork, curry powder and onions.
Freshly-caught fish are cleaned and put on
top to steam. "Fish plow" is the week-end
fare of scores of St. Helenans.

One dish which I thoroughly enjoyed was
curried octopus, always known on the
island as "catfish". Then there was
porpoise, harpooned by hand and carried
up to the market by the rejoicing crew.
The meat tasted very much like pork,
while the liver, served with an onion
gravy and bacon, made a choice meal
indeed.

Every evening a few boats pull out of
Jamestown anchorage and along the coast
beyond Rupert's Bay in search of "stump"
and "long legs", the two island species of
crawfish. The bamboo traps, like lobster
pots, are weighted with iron and baited

with tunny heads. Down they go in fifteen
fathoms, with bamboo spars as markers. I
cannot say that the "stump" is equal to a
Maine lobster, but it seemed to me to be
more tender than the Cape rock lobster.
St. Helena cooks serve their "stumps"
boiled, curried and creamed. Mrs. Moyce
of the Consulate gave me a "stump"
which had been minced, returned to its
shell with a little butter and some
flavourings, sprinkled with grated cheese
and baked until brown. This, in my view,
is the most satisfactory way of dealing
with all members of the crawfish family.

Limpets are the only shellfish which are
really plentiful at St. Helena. They are
boiled, cut out of their shells, and fried
with herbs or curried. Wideawakes' eggs
are hard to come by nowadays, for
although they are found on the bird rocks
along the St. Helena coast, the
government has stopped the collection of
eggs. Consignments still reach St. Helena
from the sister island of Ascension, where

the wideawake (sterna fuscata) is more
plentiful. I acquired the taste for seabirds'
eggs long ago, when penguin eggs were
cheap and plentiful in South Africa.
Devotees of these delicacies never forget
the subtle flavour. The prized wide-
awake's eggs are best eaten boiled; ten
minutes is just right. They often appeared
in the cable company's mess at Ascension
as savouries, with the red yolk mixed with
cheese or anchovy.

One week-end while I was in St. Helena a
fisherman caught an eighty-pound turtle
with rod and line. He then scaled a
precipice with the turtle on his back; and
thus I was able to taste steaks of turtle,
fried with onion and served with a rich
sherry gravy. It was a little too rich for
me. But the green turtle soup which
simmered for two days in the huge tureen
at the Consulate was the most delicious I
had ever experienced. The island folk still
talk about an eight hundred pound turtle
landed there last century. Two British

regiments had turtle soup for three days,
and the shell was used as a roof by a
soldier who was building a small cottage
for himself and his wife.

St. Helena has always been a vegetable
garden and an orchard. Fernando Lopez,
the mutilated Portuguese who was the
island's first settler, planted basil, parsley,
mint, spinach, fennel, anise and mustard-
seed for the good of his scurvy stricken
countrymen. Chinese pheasants, with
white-ringed necks, were put down by the
Portuguese, and are still providing good
sport after four and a half centuries. Red-
legged partridges were sent from the
Persian Gulf and guinea-fowl from West
Africa. Though the early settlers led
Robinson Crusoe lives, they never went
hungry. Fig, lemon, orange and
pomegranate trees and date palms
flourished.

Yams, imported from Madagascar, fed the
slaves and pigs of the island for hundreds
of years. St. Helena islanders call them-

selves "Yamstocks", after the vegetable
which was once their staple diet. I had
some difficulty in persuading the
Consulate people to put yams on the
menu; apparently it was like asking for
winkles in the West End of London.
Every small holder still grows yams for
his own use, though the happy days when
the American whalers called for yams are
over. Yams are cooked on the farms
before they are sent down to the
Jamestown market on pack-donkeys and
sold at a penny or two pence apiece.
According to island custom, banana skins
are pressed on the yams while they are
boiling in the pot. The ultimate flavour is
a blend of potato and artichoke. Islanders
fry their boiled yams in oil or lard, and
these thrifty people eat yam and egg far
more often than bacon and eggs.

Among the many English contributions to
St. Helena were wild deer, now extinct,
and blackberries, which I had for
breakfast often at the hotel. Blackberry

duff is a true island dish; the little
dumplings are dropped into the boiling
juice as the blackberries are being cooked.
Bligh of the Bounty landed breadfruit and
other plants from the Pacific islands at St.
Helena. Early last century a visitor wrote:
"On every farm there were grown
oranges, limes, lemons, figs, grapes,
guavas, bananas, peaches, pomegranates,
melons, watermelons, pumpkins. There
was one apple orchard yielding the owner
£500 a year."

Few islanders can afford meat except on
Sundays, and then it may be a roast leg of
goat. With luck, there may be some left
over for a stew on Monday. Curry, as I
have said, is the great island dish and for
this the cheaper cuts of meat can be
bought. Island cooks serving white
households make an excellent devilled
chicken, using curry powder, cayenne,
many onions, wine and Worcester sauce.
Rabbit is treated in the same way. You
can shoot wild rabbits in many parts of the

island, and some people breed rabbits for
the table.

They have a way with Irish stew which
may be peculiar to the island. Mrs. Moyce
told me that she first boiled all the
vegetables - whole onions, carrots and a
little turnip. Mutton chops or cuts of beef
are done separately in another pot. When
the stew is served, the meat is placed in
the centre with the vegetables round it.

Pigeons are eaten on St. Helena, but the
wild doves, which are common, are left
strictly alone. I was told that doves are
supposed by the islanders to have some
religious significance.

Many exhibits at the agricultural show I
visited bore the Longwood label, for the
land round Napoleon's old domain is still
a flourishing farm. I saw, too, some of the
lesser-known island foods; the watercress
that grows wild along the mountain
streams, once famous among scurvy
stricken sailor men. There was a purslane,

indigenous I believe, which is used as
spinach; the wild raspberry, sold in the
market for making jam and jellies; the
angelica which grows high among the
ferns on Diana's Peak, with an aromatic
stem which tastes like fennel. I bought a
jar of light yellow St. Helena honey at the
show. Bees feed on the wild kaffir-thorn
tree; others prefer aloes and cactus, and
give a darker and thicker honey.

Deadwood Plain, beyond Longwood,
produces some huge mushrooms in
November, but the finest field mushrooms
are picked round the former tomb of
Napoleon in Sane Valley. Artichokes,
guavas, Cape gooseberries, granadillas
and several other vegetables and fruits
grow wild on the island. Wild potatoes are
rare; wild tomatoes and sweet chillies not
so rare. There is a wild mint which is
dried and used as a substitute for tea, or
scattered in the cottages to destroy fleas.

St. Helena tea (Beatsonia poytulacifolia)
is another wild growth found on the rocky

cliffs and bearing a little white blossom.
This is brewed green, or dried by the poor
and mixed with imported tea. It has a
reputation for restoring lost appetites.
Islanders also collect a growth known as
lemon grass and mix it with tea to impart
a lemon flavour. Balm of Gilead is an
island plant which is infused with boiling
water and used to treat fevers.

Five banana varieties flourish in St.
Helena, some growing wild in ravines.
Naturally, this free food is not neglected
by the island cooks. Bananas appear in
milk puddings, and there is a dish for
special occasions, known as "banana
pride", in which the bananas are fried,
sprinkled with sugar and finally soused
with rum or brandy.

Pumpkin appears in many forms, and a
familiar island dish is pumpkin pudding.
Boil or steam a yellow pumpkin, add
sugar while hot, then margarine, spice,
squeeze of lemon, flour and eggs. Place
this in a greased pan and bake for two or

three hours. Pumpkin fritters are also
baked in large slabs.

Cabbage is a popular vegetable in St.
Helena, probably because the cooks
understand the art of cooking it. When
fish is scarce, the housewife buys a little
salt pork and steams it with cabbage,
potatoes and margarine.

Let us return to the coffee to end this St.
Helena banquet. Coffee was first planted
by Governor Pyke more than two
centuries ago; and the island coffee won a
first prize at the London Exhibition in the
middle of last century. At that period, St.
Helena coffee fetched a penny a pound
more than any other coffee in the world
on the London market.

Foolishly the islanders tore the coffee
bushes out of their fields to make way for
flax, the lazy man's crop. They lived to
rue the day, and now a great deal of re-
planting is in progress. You find the old
coffee growing in hedges; the last of that

pure Mocha coffee which has never
known a pest. Kenya coffee is also being
cultivated on government ground and
elsewhere. Dry seasons appear to favour
the coffee, for then crops are heavy.
Down in the Sandy Bay area, in sheltered
ravines, coffee grows wild, bushes with
pure white blossoms and red berries
reaching a height of fifteen feet.

One of these days you will hear more of
St. Helena coffee. It is mild when taken
alone, but lends itself naturally to a blend.
Coffee may restore something of St.
Helena's lost prosperity, and I hope that
the smallholder, the hard-pressed
countryman with his tiny cottage and
yams and pack-donkeys, will share in that
wealth.

Chapter 21
In A Tiny City

St. HELENA HAS only one entrance and no
exit," say the people who love the island
and never wish to leave. Jamestown is the
entrance, and it has been called a tiny,
unique city' because it is at once the
capital and only town of St. Helena."
Jamestown is indeed unique. By sheer
chance rather than a love of beauty it has
preserved its past almost complete, so that
you step into a Main Street which is a
handsome relic of the eighteenth century.
Two rows of dignified Georgian houses
look into each other's sashed windows.
On the small, square panes you can still
read the names, scratched with diamonds,
of residents who lived there long ago.

Earlier this century you would have seen
island children wearing three-cornered
beaver hats and frilled linen collars. In
some ways Jamestown is still early
Victorian, and keen observers say that
Main Street seems to have been lifted
bodily from Tunbridge Wells.

I made my own map of Jamestown, all the
way from the Castle portcullis to the end
of the valley. They play tennis in the
Castle moat nowadays, and not many
people notice the seven "post office
stones" built into the wall. At the Castle
entrance (a cameo for an artist with a
glimpse of steps and trees and cobbled
courtyard) you find the coat-of-arms of
the English East India Company. Here,
too, is the oldest English inscription on
the island, the stone left by Will Fremlen,
master of the ship Dolphin, who called in
1645 when the island was deserted. Go
out on the Castle terrace and you can
imagine a ghostly orchestra playing in the
ballroom; the people of the island gazing

in wonder upon Madame Bertrand and the
chic women of Napoleon's entourage.

Next to the Castle are the law courts and
the library, while on the far side of the
parade is the almost-empty gaol. But the
sight that holds the gaze of every visitor is
Jacob's Ladder, certainly one of the seven
wonders of the island. Ladder Hill gained
its name before the end of the seventeenth
century, for there was a rope ladder at the
steepest part, long before any road was
made. The modern Jacob's ladder, with a
so-called "tramway" on each side of the
steps, was built by army engineers in 1830
to enable ammunition and stores to be
raised from Jamestown to the fort above.
Country produce went down the inclined
plane in safety trucks which could not run
away if the rope broke; an invention of the
Jamestown organist. You can still see the
concrete base where mules worked the
capstan bars which set the whole
contraption going.

Climb the steps by all means if your legs
are in good condition, but remember that
many who set out do not reach the top.
There are seven hundred steps; each step
is eleven inches high, a most tiring choice.
(One step is buried at the foot, so the
guide books tell you there are six hundred
and ninety-nine steps.) The total length of
the ladder is nine hundred and thirty-three
feet, and the vertical height six hundred
feet. That gives an average slope of thirty-
nine degrees, steep enough to make some
people dizzy. Islanders go up the ladder
with a peculiar backward swing of the leg
which helps them on the high steps and
prevents aching muscles. School-children
attending the secondary school on top
think nothing of a climb which is an
impossible ordeal for many people.

Rails on each side of Jacob's Ladder are
of such width that the island boys are able
to lie with their necks on one rail and feet
on the other and slide down at a speed
which horrifies the newcomer. This feat

Islanders go up the ladder with a peculiar backward swing of the leg which helps them on the high

steps and prevents aching muscles.

was first performed when soldiers from
the Ladder Hill barracks were on duty in
Jamestown at lunch-time. Boys were sent
down with rations, and they had to deliver
the soup before it cooled off. They soon
devised the method of sliding down the
banisters with the canteens balanced on
their stomachs. Hundreds of island boys
can race up the steps and slide down
within eight minutes. It takes nerve and
skill, and it reminded me of the guides
running up and down the Pyramids. I
believe there has been only one death on
Jacob's Ladder, and the ladder cannot be
blamed for that. The victim was a naval
seaman who unwisely attempted the
descent after a visit to an inn.

The old signal station at the top of Jacob's
Ladder is the home nowadays of a
hospitable retired colonel. It has been
transformed into a comfortable residence
with one of the most remarkable views in
the world; and very glad I was to stand
there with a glass of pink gin in my hand

and the cliffs of St. Helena framed in the
long window. One night, I remember, a
fleet of whalers bound for the Antarctic
anchored off the island. They held no
communication with the shore, but it was
as though the world had come up over the
horizon. The colonel's guests stared hard
at those whalers; and the sun went down;
and there was the "green flash", a rare and
brilliant spectacle, shooting upwards from
the setting sun. I remember, too, the
position the colonel had chosen for his
bed. It was level with the railing at the
edge of the precipice on the seaward side.
An uneasy sleeper would have rolled
over, and then gone straight down to West
Rocks. But the colonel is not disturbed by
heights. He admits that sometimes he
loses his morning tea-cup, but he declares
that he will not lose his life.

Ladder Hill has other landmarks. Scars of
the disused road to the summit cut by
Governor Pyke in 1717 are still visible.
The present road has a very necessary

stone wall. Emery's jump is the spot
where Sergeant John Emery was thrown
over the cliff when his horse took fright.
Frenchman's Leap recalls a recent
accident when the French Vice-Consul
lost control of his car, drove through the
wall and landed in the valley two hundred
feet below - almost unhurt. A steel-
topped motor-car is a wonderful thing.

Come back to Jamestown, slowly and
carefully by the motor road. At the foot of
Main Street are the public gardens, once a
campground for Boer prisoners. The huge
trees that loom over the parade from the
gardens are peepul or banyan trees from
India, planted all the way up the valley by
Governor Dunbar more than two centuries
ago. Above the gardens you may follow
the steep, zig-zag hillside path called
Sisters' Walk, laid out by Governor Patten
for his two daughters early last century.
This scene formed Napoleon's first
glimpse of the St. Helena interior in
daylight. He landed in the dark and lodged

that first night in the boarding-house kept
by the government botanist, Mr. Porteous.
Sad to relate, this fine old house was sold
in 1937 for two hundred pounds and
pulled down to make way for a motor
garage. By an almost incredible
coincidence, the room selected for
Napoleon, overlooking the gardens, was
the very room which had been occupied
ten years before by Sir Arthur Wellesley,
later Duke of Wellington.

Not all monuments are to be admired, but
there are a few in this part of Jamestown
worthy of your full attention. One stands
in the public gardens, built with the hard-
earned pennies of the men of H.M.S.
Waterwitch in memory of their shipmates
who died while rounding up the slavers.
Her captain was Sturdee, father of the
admiral who gained a wider fame at the
Falklands battle.

Sometimes a doctor becomes a legend,
not only because of his medical skill but
as a man. And such a man was Dr. W. J. J.

Arnold of St. Helena, whose monument
stands in the middle of the parade ground.
"The best friend St. Helena ever had,"
reads the inscription. Arnold was an
Irishman and a bachelor. He arrived in St.
Helena as an army surgeon in 1901, and
became a general practitioner when he left
the service. Later he was appointed
Colonial Surgeon, and he acted as
Governor in 1925, shortly before his
death. Dr. Arnold not only gave his skill
to the island, but also every penny he
could spare. The poor worshipped him.
He rode about on horseback attending the
very poor without ever charging a fee, and
when a patient could not pay for
medicines he provided the money out of
his own pocket. "He knew the heart of
every poor person on St. Helena," an old
boatman told me. I mentioned the name of
Dr. Arnold to an island woman and tears
came into her eyes as she said: "I tell you,
a shiver went through this place the day
the doctor died."

St. Helena's most famous dynasty is the
Solomon family, and I found a memorial
tablet to Saul Solomon (1817 1892) in St.
James's Church at the foot of Main Street
in Jamestown. The first of the line to
settle on the island, also Saul, was put on
shore gravely ill from a ship bound for
India ten years before the end of the
eighteenth century. He recovered and
became known in time as the "Merchant
King of St. Helena". The first Saul
Solomon persuaded his brothers Benjamin
and Joseph to leave London and join him
in business on the island. There was also a
Charles Solomon in those days, probably
another brother. Originally the family was
Jewish. Church registers as far back as
1798 record marriages and baptisms of
members of the family. The Saul Solomon
who came to South Africa, founded the
"Cape Argus", and made such a great
name for himself in Cape politics, was
Joseph's son, born on the island. It is
interesting to note that the Solomons had

a printing press on the island early last
century.

Saul Solomon the first was an admirer of
Napoleon. According to island legend,
Saul sent a silken ladder, hidden in a
teapot, to Longwood, the idea being that
Napoleon would descend a cliff at night
and escape by boat; however, the plot was
discovered and the ladder seized.
Historians have been unable to confirm
the story. The Solomons supplied
Longwood with provisions, of course, and
some of the local halfpenny coins bearing
the names of Solomon and his partners
Dickson and Taylor were dug up at
Longwood during my visit. Saul Solomon
was Consul for France at the time of the
removal of Napoleon's body. He made the
arrangements for the exhumation and
received a medal. Miss Gideon, a relative,
made the French flags used on this
occasion and the Prince de Joinville
presented her with a gold armlet set with
rubies, pearls and an emerald. The last of

the line is the Hon. H. W. Solomon,
O.B.E. He has no children, and he has
sold most of his St. Helena interests to a
London firm. Thus the Solomon dynasty
is coming to an end after more than a
century and a half.

Though several Jewish names remain on
the island, the little Jewish colony which
formed round the first Saul Solomon has
died out. A name which seems to have
vanished is Gideon. The first Gideon
appears to have been Lewis Gideon
Solomon, a brother of the first Saul
Solomon, who dropped the Solomon by
deed poll to avoid confusion with the
other Solomons. Lewis Gideon was a
partner in the firm of Solomon, Gideon
and Moss; he was also a jeweller and
watchmaker, and Napoleon entrusted him
with the repair of the Lengwood
timepieces. Gideon was very friendly with
Napoleon's physician O'Meara and
supplied him with newspapers. All these
Jews of St. Helena have gone, both in the

religious and the racial sense, as a result
of conversion and intermarriage with
Gentiles. Islands are always worth
studying. It seems that a small human
minority on a remote island is bound to be
swallowed up.

Main Street is full of memories of
personalities. Next to the Porteous house
stood the queer old American Consulate,
one room upstairs, one room downstairs.
It has gone, but the last consul, Captain
Coffin, has not been forgotten. Apart from
these two demolitions, I think Main Street
is intact. Almost every stately house is a
home, with a barred cellar below where
the slaves once lived. Several houses have
steps and high stoeps reminiscent of the
Old Cape Town architecture. The cobbled
pavements and gutters must be very old.
Some of the buildings have iron frames
for oil lamps. Street lighting came
towards the end of Queen Victoria's time;
before that you could put your own lamp
in a frame and light up. It is one of the

quietest streets I have ever known, and
often the only sound is the trade wind
rustling the dry banana leaves.
Woolsmoke and the gratifying odour of
fresh bread from the Benjamins' bakery
are the aromas. And the sight which a
purely St. Helenan is a cavalcade of
donkeys coming in from the country
loaded with firewood and vegetables,
poultry and fruit.

The most unusual sight in Main Street, of
course, is a stranger. I walked down to the
wharf before breakfast on my first
morning in Jamestown; passing the
gardens I became aware of a man who had
been sweeping the street. When he saw
me he stood rigid, gaping and gripping his
broom; and he stared after me, thunder-
struck, until I had disappeared through the
portcullis. As I have said, someone called
Jamestown a "tiny city". It is really just
one of the world's many small towns, but
an isolated small town, a small town at the
end of the world. If you decide to lead any

sort of double life, do not settle in James-
town.

I am still lingering in Main Street. There
are a couple of cafes where the white
exiles take their morning coffee and egg
sandwiches when they come into
Jamestown for their Saturday shopping.
Here, too, is the town house which the last
of the Solomons sold not long ago; a
grand old mansion where Madame Patti
once gave a concert. I have already
spoken of my hotel, the Consulate, but
there are many stories, and much history,
enshrined in those bricks. In the whaling
days, and I am talking now of the
American sailing whalers, some of the
skippers' wives put up at the Consulate
and waited for their husbands to return
from the Southern Ocean. Late one night a
captain's wife awoke with a thirst,
complained of illness and loudly
demanded a drink. Mrs. Knipe, the
proprietor's wife, brought her a brandy
and water. It was too weak for the

American palate. Everyone in the hotel
heard the captain's wife shouting: "This is
what I call water bewitched and brandy
begrudged."

Next door to the Consulate is the
picturesque old Malabar store. Malabar
was a ship. She was condemned and
broken up, but her cargo was salved and
placed in this store. (Another store on the
parade ground is called the Rickmers for
the same reason; the ship was the Willi
Rickmers.) Solomon owned the Malabar,
and his old office, which has handled
practically all the wealth of this little
island for so many years, is a little way
down the street. St. Helena has no bank,
but I cashed my traveller's cheques at
Solomon's office. It is hard to imagine St.
Helena without a Solomon.

Main Street forks out just beyond the
Malabar store. At the top, facing the sea,
is an old house nicknamed "The Canister"
because it is shaped like an old-fashioned
canister of tea. Slaves were sold by

auction under the trees outside "The
Canister" early last century. They lit an
inch of candle, and the bid made as the
candle snuffed out was accepted.

Walk down Main Street on the left (facing
the sea) and you come to the shops; the
fragrant bakery, a grocer, and "The Star"
general store owned by the Solomon firm.
They put up their Christmas decorations
while I was there and filled the windows
with toys. No toy cost more than a few
shillings; it was a pathetic illustration of
the island's distress.

Now you are facing the post-office, a
feverish place when a passenger ship
comes in, for St. Helena stamps are in
great demand. Over the post office during
my visit lived a brave old artist, Mr. F.
Oswell- Jones, a man with a beret, a white
beard and the ribbons of three wars. He
told me that he had started as a chorister
and sung in the Westminster Abbey choir;
he had been a theatrical painter, art
director in the early days of British films,

and a church decorator. "I've never had a
regular steady job all my life," remarked
Oswell- Jones uncomplainingly.

One day Oswell-Jones was orderly officer
at Kasr-el-Nil barracks in Cairo. An
officer, hatless, wearing carpet slippers,
and without a belt, was brought in by the
military police. They thought he was an
impostor. He was Lawrence of Arabia.
Not long afterwards Oswell-Jones was
sent to Jeddah with a quarter of a million
golden sovereigns, and he met Lawrence
again. The money was used to finance the
Arab revolt.

If I have wandered away from Main
Street, I have shown you that all sorts of
characters settle in St. Helena. Oswell-
Jones married an educated St. Helena
woman, the librarian who helped me to
appreciate the island cuisine. "I shall
never go back," said Oswell-Jones.

St. Helena's senior settler from England at
the time of my visit was Mr. E. J. ("Pop")

Warren, for many years the island's
chemist. He still looks into his shop
occasionally, next door but one to the post
office. "Pop" Warren and his wife enter-
tained me again and again in their home
on the Half Tree Hollow road, over-
looking a great expanse of ocean. I shall
remember "Pop" Warren (eighty-one
when I met him) as a man who had spent
his life in a small community on a lonely
island without acquiring a narrow outlook.
He could have held his own, with his
sense of humour and technical skill, in
London or New York.

Warren's sister had married a dentist and
chemist who had established himself on
St. Helena. Warren joined his brother-in-
law on the island in 1889 as an apprentice.
He has a fine collection of photographs
covering the island's story since then,
with a few historic pictures taken before
his arrival. Some of "Pop" Warren's
furniture is historic, too, and he believes
that he has the posters from Napoleon's

bed. Long ago he paid five shillings for a
mahogany desk, made by a fine
craftsman. At the back of a drawer he
discovered a letter written by a
seventeenth-century governor, Anthony
Beale, warning his son against wine and
women.

"Pop" Warren told me that he had never
made more than five hundred pounds a
year during his long period as a chemist.
Yet he had brought up a son (farming in
Devon) and two daughters (married to
cable men) and had lived well all the time.
A newcomer to St. Helena once asked
Warren: "How much would I need to live
on here? "

"I don't know," replied Warren. "I'd have
to watch your habits closely for six
months before I could answer a question
like that."

St. Helena has a high illegitimacy rate
owing to poverty. A bygone bishop told
Warren that the island was the most

immoral place in the world. "I disagree
entirely," Warren retorted. "You ought to
have a look at Marseilles and Buenos
Aires before you talk like that. Thanks to
the army, the navy and the merchant
service there are a great many fatherless
children on the island - but look how
healthy they are! Without that new blood,
they would all be lunatics through
inbreeding by now."

Pass on from "Pop" Warren's shop to
Wellington House with the high steps, the
grey home of St. Helena handicrafts
where ships' passengers (the few that call
nowadays) buy lace and beads and
polished wooden trays with the St. Helena
crest inlaid. Wellington, as Sir Arthur
Wellesley, moved across the road to this
house in 1805 after spending the night I
have mentioned in the Porteous boarding-
house.

Long before there was a Main Street, a
century and a half before Van Riebeeck
built the Cape settlement, Portuguese

mariners lived in this island valley. The
last houses in Main Street are owned by
the government and occupied by Mr. Le
Breton, a headmaster, Mr. Bizarre, the
harbourmaster, and certain government
offices. On the site of those houses the
Portuguese assembled the timber of a
wrecked carrack in the shape of a chapel.
They called their settlement Chapel
Valley, the name it bears to this day.

When Napoleon rode up Main Street on
the first day of his island exile, he turned
to the left at "The Canister" and passed
through a street known ever since that day
as Napoleon Street. Some of the double-
storied houses and little cottages in
Napoleon Street are very old, with ships'
timbers in their ceilings and stairways. In
the shipping days, the great days of sail
when a thousand, fourteen hundred ships
anchored off Jamestown every year, there
were sailors' boarding-houses in
Napoleon Street. The girls persuaded the
men to desert, and they went to live

riotously at Bobbins' and other such
establishments until their money was
spent and the keeper cashed their advance
notes and shipped them away.

Turn right at "The Canister" and you
come to a policeman on traffic duty (the
lightest of tasks), the general market and
fish market, and the winding, uphill
Market Street. St. Helena has no postal
service within the island, but it has a free
and pleasant alternative. Hand your letters
to the policeman outside the market, and
he will pass it on to the first driver going
in the required direction.

It was in Market Street that I was shown a
little English motorcar bearing the number
"I" and a sale card marked £70. This was
an historic car, the first that ever ran on
the island (in 1929) and still in running
order. I do feel that this island away from
our mad world might have been left as the
last home of the horse and the carriage.
Motor-cars had been prohibited in 1919,
and when the matter came up for

discussion again nine years later, there
were many who supported the ban. "Time
is rarely the essence of any undertaking in
St. Helena," wrote the Governor in his
report on the subject. One escapist, who
had settled on the island to avoid progress,
declared that he would leave when the
first car arrived. Nevertheless, the old
ordinance was repealed, Mr. H. W.
Solomon imported the car which I saw,
and the escapist also soon became a car-
owner. I have a St. Helena driving licence
myself; but I still wish that I had known
this island in the even more leisurely days
of the horse.

Market Street has a friendly little tavern
called the "White Horse", and not far
away is the "Black Horse" building where
slaves were sold. Mr. Edward
Constantine, schoolmaster and authority
on island history, took me to an old
Market Street building occupied by the
Mechanics and Friendly Benefit Society.
(These old-established societies play a

large part in St. Helena life, for the poor
islanders have learnt to help themselves
and save for their hour of need.) Mr.
Constantine was president of this society.
He opened a black treasure chest -
identified by British Museum authorities
as sixteenth century workmanship - and
showed me the false keyhole in front and
the hidden keyhole on top. No doubt the
chest had come from a ship. At one time
the society's money was kept in the chest,
and even now a member who receives aid
is said to have "gone on the box". The
society also possesses rosewood chairs of
the Queen Anne period and round horn
candle lanterns which came from sailing
ships long ago. "This is a wonderful place
for discovering antique furniture," pointed
out Mr. Constantine. "Many a fish is cut
up on a genuine Chippendale table. "

In a Market Street shop the owner showed
me a box of coins and made me wonder
whether there might not be prizes for the
coin collector on the island. St. Helena

uses British and South African currency at
the present time; but in the past the money
that circulated there was bewildering.
Spanish dollars, also known as pieces of
eight, were in general use in the
seventeenth century. Later on, with ships
of many European nations trading with
the East and calling at the island, a great
variety of coins were introduced. It was
the place where passengers got rid of odd
money, and eagerly the Jamestown shop-
keepers accepted it. Thus in the eighteenth
century the islanders found themselves
juggling with seventeen different
currencies at once. Gold doubloons were
handled, and Bengal mohurs, moidores,
star pagodas, gold gubbers and Venetian
sequins. Madras rupees clinked into the
tills with duca'oons, German crowns,
Maria Therese dollars, Portuguese joes,
Dutch guilders, rixdollars, francs and
English shillings. Early last century, in
spite of this dazzling and jingling array,
there was a shortage of small change. Saul

Solomon stepped into the breach by
having his own firm's halfpennies minted
in London and sent to the island. More
than seventy thousand were issued, but
they are now rare.

If you follow Market Street up the valley
you come to China Lane, where many of
the Chinese labourers once lived. They
arrived in Governor Beaton's time, early
last century, not as slaves but as
indentured farm labourers at a shilling a
day and rations. Sometimes the Macao
men fought the Cantonese; but they all
worked well, and at one time there were
more than six hundred of them on the
island. They had their own joss-house in
the Plantation grounds. Not one pure
Chinese is to be found in St. Helena
today, but the Chinese eyes and high
cheek bones may be seen distinctly in
some island families.

There are several romantic old residences
with gardens at the upper end of the
Jamestown valley. One of them is

Cambrian House, where I was entertained
by Miss Pritchard, descendant of an old
family which became famous both on St.
Helena and South Africa. (Colonel H. H.
Pritchard helped to guard Napoleon. One
of his grandsons was the Johannesburg
surveyor after whom Pritchard Street was
named.) Cambrian House has a garden,
one acre in area, which is a fragment of
the celebrated garden which once supplied
the English East India Company's ships.
Miss Pritchard still has her own mangoes
and paw-paws, bananas, figs, lequats,
guavas, avocado pears and rose apples.
All the tropical fruits in St. Helena are
grown near sea level. I saw bread fruit and
Brazilian cherries in Miss Pritchard 's
garden, date and coconut palms, pink and
white oleanders, jacaranda in flower,
bougainvillea of two varieties.

Last house in the valley, above Miss
Pritchard' s, is Maldivia House. This was
the site of the island hospital two
centuries ago, and it is now the official

residence of the assistant medical officer.
Maldivia recalls the voyage of the ship
Drake in 1734, when she was homeward
bound across the Indian Ocean. Far from
land she picked up a canoe with ten
natives of the Maldive Islands, almost
dead from thirst. Three died after the
rescue. Five men, one woman and a boy
were landed at St. Helena and put to work
as slaves in the garden which is named
after their home.

Dinizulu, chief of the Zulus, spent part of
his St. Helena exile at Maldivia. He felt
the cold in the country severely, but the
valley suited him and the other Zulus with
him. I liked Maldivia House, with its
small windows of hand-blown glass. But
with the white ant in the woodwork, I give
it another decade and then the historic
mansion will fall to pieces as so many
island homes have done. The largest
mango tree in St. Helena grows in the
garden.

All the gardens of this valley are watered
by the stream known as "The Run", which
is the water from the Heart-shaped
Waterfall above Maldivia. Floods were a
menace, even in fairly recent years. No
escape was possible in the old days when
a wall of water rushed down a narrow
valley, such as the Jamestown valley, after
a cloudburst. Forts and plantations were
damaged, the yam crops in Maldivia
Gardens were covered with stones, houses
and cellars were invaded by torrents. The
heaviest flood in recent years occurred in
1878, when houses and stores in
Jamestown were ruined, bridges were
destroyed, and the streets were blocked
for days with trees brought down by the
sudden rush of water. Two lives were lost.
When you cross the old moat and pass
through the portcullis on to the Jamestown
lower parade, turn to your left and you
will find an inscribed stone showing the
height to which the flood waters rose

before they burst through the gateway to
the sea.

I was driving a tiny, borrowed car up the
zig-zag Ladder Hill road one day when I
saw a memorial tablet in the rock. It gave
the names of nine people who were killed
on April 17, 1890, when fifteen hundred
tons of rock fell from that spot into Jame-
stown.

Wherever I went on St. Helena I was
conscious of the heights. Jamestown is
especially aware of its cliffs. All through
the island history you find fatal accidents
caused by people falling over cliffs, or
landslides crushing people to death.
Heavy rains or great heat affect the
treacherous volcanic rock, the basalt and
loose shale in all the steep parts of the
island. The disaster of 1890 was the most
serious rock fall ever recorded; but the
tragedy may occur again with even greater
loss of life. It is like living below a
volcano.

Victims of the 1890 rock fall included a
baby of one and a man of sixty. Twelve
were injured, fourteen houses were
wrecked and large portions of the road
were carried away. I looked down from
the road and saw the very boulders which
had caused all this destruction.

High Rock, they call the place on the
heights where the rock broke away, but
the old name was Pierie's Revenge.
Colonel Pierie, an engineer employed by
the English East India Company, was so
afraid of the place that he always rode
past the overhanging rock at the gallop.
He died in bed after all, but there was a
rock fall at the spot in 1824, and then it
was given Pierie's name.

I prefer eye-witness stories to historical
records, and I had no difficulty in finding
old people who remembered the 1890
disaster. "Everyone was in bed," Mr.
Warren told me. "The rock tore down
with a deafening roar at two o'clock in the
morning, and with a sulphurous odour

which made it seem as though Hell had
opened. The night was so dark you could
not cut it with a knife. It was ghastly. The
whole town was panic-stricken, but no
one knew where to run for safety."

Most of the victims were crushed to death
in bed. There were many freak effects and
marvellous escapes. Two large rocks
passed tight through Mrs. McLaughlin's
house, but no one received more than a
few bruises. A twenty-five ton rock fell
into the yard of Miss Bagley's house,
pierced the bedroom and pinned Miss
Bagley between the bed and the wardrobe.
She and many others were rescued by
seamen from H.M.S. Archer, which was
anchored off Jamestown that night. The
seamen came on shore with tackles and
bars, picks and shovels, and they dug out
the injured and the dead by lantern-light.
They also showed their sympathy by
starting a relief fund; every man in the
ship's company from the captain
downwards gave one day's pay.

Some islanders lived in caves at that time.
It was forbidden many years ago; but in
1890 a family had a cave in the cliff a
little way below the area where the rock
broke away. The rockslide passed right
over the mouth of the cave without
injuring the people inside.

St. Helena is not as careful of its
monuments as it might be. A lovely
fountain (which some of you will
remember) once stood outside the post
office in Main Street in memory of the
dead. It was provided as a thanksgiving by
those who escaped the 1890 rock fall.
Now it has made way for less decorative
electric standards and motor-cars.

On May 5, 1921, exactly a century after
Napoleon's death, the battery on Ladder
Hill fired minute guns in honour of the
centenary. They fired fifty rounds that
day, and another fifty rounds next day.
Four days later the whole cliff on the
seaward side of Ladder Hill slid gently
down on to the rocks at sea level. No one

was hurt on that occasion, but it was a
reminder of the insecurity of many parts
of Napoleon's isle. Geologists have
estimated that the island has lost about
one-third of its bulk since first it rose
above the ocean. It will lose more. St.
Helena is no place for letting off cannon.

St. Helena has been a true Robinson
Crusoe island on more than one occasion.
Juan de Nova Castella, the Portuguese
who discovered the island in 1501, left
behind a number of goats, asses and pigs.
(A pity about the goats.) Fifteen years
later the island received its first settler. He
was a Portuguese nobleman named
Fernando Lopez, and he had been
mutilated in Goa for desertion and
treachery. His right hand, the thumb of his
left hand, his ears and his nose had been
cut off, but he had survived this torture
and stowed away in a ship bound for
Lisbon.

The ship called at St. Helena for water. By
this time Lopez had decided that he could
not face his wife in his maimed condition,
so he hid in the woods until the ship had
left. Fortunately his shipmates had taken
pity on him, and had left a barrel of
biscuit, preserved beef, dried fish, salt and
old clothes. They had lit a fire, which
Lopez kept burning. In a farewell letter
they advised Lopez to signal to any ship
that called and ask for anything he
needed.

One of the old Portuguese historians,
Correa, put together a vivid and detailed
account of the adventure of Lopez. It
seems that the maimed exile was not
altogether unhappy, for there was no one
to look upon him with disgust or pity. At
that time the island was covered with
forest. Turtle crawled up on the beaches.
Now and again he was able to kill one of
the goats or pigs that were running wild.
He gathered "many tender herbs which
were savoury to eat". Fish were easily

caught. After a time he discovered stones
which gave out sparks, and he no longer
bothered to keep the original fire going all
the time. His home was in a cave which
he had scooped out with his four fingers
in Chapel Valley.

A year went by, and then a Portuguese
ship anchored off the valley. Fernando
Lopez feared that he would be carried
back to India and imprisoned, and he fled
into the deep forests for sanctuary. From a
cliff he watched the departure of the ship.
When he reached his cave he found a
store of biscuits, cheeses from Portugal,
rice and other foodstuffs and a letter
"bidding him not hide himself, but when
any ship should touch there he should
speak with it, for no one would harm
him". Here was good news indeed for the
hermit. And down on the beach he found
a half drowned cock, which became his
pet.

Nevertheless, Lopez had ceased to trust
the human race, and for ten long years he

took to the forests whenever a sail came
round the cliffs of the valley. Hundreds of
Portuguese seamen visited his cave. In the
end King John III of Portugal heard the
story of the St. Helena hermit and sent
him a letter offering a free pardon and
safe conduct to Lisbon if he cared to
return.

Lopez was still hesitating when a "Man
Friday" arrived on the island in the shape
of a Javanese slave boy who had deserted
from a ship. They did not get on well
together. When the next ship called, the
Javanese offered to lead a party to the
hiding-place of Lopez in the woods. In
this way Lopez was rounded up at last;
but the Portuguese captain did not hold
him for long. He merely gave Lopez a
written assurance that he would not be
carried off to Portugal against his will;
while Lopez promised that he would
never again hide in the woods when ships
arrived.

There came a time when Lopez made the
great decision to join a ship bound for
Lisbon. Civilisation frightened him; yet he
was received by his king and queen,
travelled from Lisbon to Rome to confess
his sins, and had an audience with the
Pope. During this audience the Pope
asked Lopez what his greatest wish, in life
might be. "I yearn to go back to the peace
of St. Helena, but I fear the King of
Portugal may refuse this request," poor
Lopez replied.

With the influence of the Pope, however;
Lopez soon returned to the island. This
time he took many comforts with him.
"He would shew himself and converse
with the people of ships, and all gave him
things to plant and to sow," Correa
recorded. "Thus he cultivated a great
many gourds, pomegranates and palm-
trees, and kept ducks, hens, sows and she-
goats with young, all of which increased
largely, and all became wild in the
woods."

Lopez died in 1545, after living alone for
nearly thirty years in the quiet valley
where Jamestown now stands. He was a
true lover of solitude, and the island
enabled him to overcome a handicap
which would otherwise have tormented
him throughout his life.

The next Robinson Crusoes of St. Helena
were slaves of both sexes, African and
Javanese, who swam ashore from a
Portuguese slaver. Such generous cover
was provided by the old gum wood trees
and other growths that it was impossible
to trace a runaway. The slaves lived on
the fruit and vegetable gardens planted by
Lopez and the wild cattle and goats. It is
not clear whether the little slave colony
abandoned the island or died out; but a
time came again when St. Helena was left
to the animals, apart from periods when
sick Portuguese seamen were put on shore
to recover and join the next ship.

Pirates looked in occasionally. Then there
was Bermudez, the Patriarch of

Abyssinia, a troublesome Portuguese who
appears to have fallen out with the captain
of his ship. Bermudez insisted upon being
put on shore at St. Helena with his slaves,
and he had to wait a year before another
ship took him away. As far back as 1583,
three Japanese ambassadors landed on the
island. They were on their way to Rome,
having been advised by some Jesuit
missionaries to call on the Pope; a strange
voyage considering the remoteness of
Japan at that period and long afterwards.

For nearly a century the Portuguese and
their friends the Spanish managed to keep
the very existence of St. Helena a deep
secret. No ships but Portuguese had
sighted the island. At last a Spanish
galleon was looted and burnt by the
English sea rover, Captain John
Cavendish, who extracted the secret of St.
Helena from the galleon's pilot.
Cavendish found the island in 1588 and
left an excellent account of his visit. The
only inhabitants were slaves; but he

inspected a tiled church in the valley and
two houses. "This valley is the fairest and
largest low plot in all the island, and it is
marvellously sweet and pleasant, and
planted in every place with fruit trees or
with herbs," Cavendish wrote. "There are
in this island thousands of goats, which
are very wild: sometimes you may behold
them going in a flock almost a mile long.
We took and killed many of them for all
their swiftness, for there be thousands of
them upon the mountains."

Cavendish did not realise it at the time,
but these goats were to become the curse
of the island, horned devils eating crops
and indigenous growths. Only in
comparatively recent years has this pest
come under a measure of control.
However, the goats evidently kept out of
the cultivated area during Cavendish's
visit, for he described the valley as "so
full of fruit trees and excellent plants that
it seemed like a fair and well-cultivated
garden, having long rows of lemon,

orange, citron, pomegranate, date and fig-
trees, delighting the eye with blossoms,
green and ripe fruit all at once".

Among the early Dutch callers was Van
Linschoten, who described St. Helena as
"an earthly Paradise for the Portuguese
ships, and seemeth to have been
miraculously discovered for the refreshing
and service of the same". There came a
time when the Portuguese hardly dared to
anchor off the island they had colonised;
for, as an observer of the period wrote:
"the English and Dutch, in the churlish
language of a cannon, sometimes disputed
their property."

St. Helena was deserted when Van
Riebeeck founded the Cape settlement.
Thus he was able to send the galiot Tulp
to the island in 1654 to meet the Dutch
return fleet from the East and secure
necessities such as rice, sugar and wheat.
On later occasions the island itself
supplied certain of Van Riebeeck' s needs,
for the ship Nachtglas brought him fruit

trees from there. The famous Kakamas
peach, a yellow cling variety, is actually a
descendant of the peach which Van
Riebeeck imported from the island. Then
came the English occupation of St. Helena
under Captain John Dutton in 1658, and
the island ceased to be a no-man's-land.

Chapter 22

"Every Man Has His Price"

St. HELENA IS a dot in the South Atlantic,
but it has many claims to fame. Probably
it is the only island in the world with a
population running into thousands which
can claim to have lived through more than
a century with only one murder. Old
islanders told me all about that murder,
from every angle, and described the
Governor's dilemma when the two
murderers had to be executed. I heard
queer tales of other crimes within living
memory and the crimes of long ago. They
traced for my benefit, in old St. Helena
Almanacs, the career of a character named

James Francis Homagee, a Parsee, who
was given the choice of death for some
unspecified crime in India or the hang-
man's job on the island. (In the middle of
last century it was considered the right
thing to go abroad for a hangman.)
Homagee never had to carry out an
execution. At first he walked round
Jamestown with a tin on his head selling
fish. Then he became messenger at the
Castle. He secured a post as clerk and
towards the end of last century he rose to
be chief magistrate of the island.
Homagee certainly made the right choice.

In a dark little room in the Castle I spent
hours examining the St. Helena archives,
including criminal records covering
hundreds of years. This island has had its
full share of cruelty and torture, mutinies
and hangings. In a seventeenth century
conspiracy thirteen men "in open day"
shot Governor Johnson at the Castle and
escaped in the ship Francis and Mary.
Rebellious slaves were hung, drawn and

quartered, while some were "hanged in
chains alive and starved to death".

Records of the quarter sessions and other
criminal trials which I studied, some
trivial and others serious, bring to life
many events which shook island society.
Idle, gossiping women, scolds and tale-
bearers, mischief-makers and scandal
mongers were ducked in the sea or
whipped. Erring slaves were branded, or
burning sealing wax was dropped on their
shuddering limbs. One slave who had
poisoned several people was burnt to
death, and all the blacks on the island had
to bring fuel and watch the execution.
Soldiers were flogged and drummed out
of the garrison with halters round their
necks. Thieving slaves had their right
hands cut off.

One of the company's officers, who had
an illicit love affair with a widow, was
called to task by the governor. He insulted
the governor, whereupon he was degraded
before the garrison, his sword was broken

over his head, and he was forced to stand
in the pillory with his paramour. Two
centuries ago four white men who beat a
woman slave to death were fined six
pounds ten shillings between them. Often
a black would be condemned to death
while a white accomplice would receive a
light sentence. Until late in the eighteenth
century the evidence of a black was not
admissible against white people. Elizabeth
Renton, who murdered one of her female
slaves with a carving knife, escaped for
this reason.

Among the earliest entries I found in the
Council records (1678) was a mention of
an inquest on one Thomas Green. "Body
taken up," ran the record. "Trial by
touching the dead body. Three persons
committed on verdict of manslaughter."
At this period, too, W. Melling was
ordered to ride the wooden horse with a
bag of shot at each heel; his crime was
"swearing and incivility".

Soon afterwards Elizabeth Starling
assaulted and abused the captain of the
ship Charles the Second, while her
husband threatened to beat the captain
"and to make the sun shine through him".
Apparently the husband was acquitted, but
Elizabeth received fifteen lashes on her
naked body and was ducked three times.

Two runaway apprentices, Rowland and
Eastings, broke into a house, took a
fowling piece and killed a sow. Each lad
had the tip of his right ear cut off, his
forehead branded with the letter "R", and
a pair of pothooks riveted round his neck.
They were also flogged round the town.

Then there was the impudent Corporal
Bowyer who married a widow, Mrs.
Simms, before the circumstances could be
considered by the Governor in council.
Bowyer was reduced to private and
imprisoned, while ten acres and eight
head of cattle belonging to Mrs. Simms
were seized.

The court dealt with the apprentice
Eastings again not long after the episode
of the sow. He was only fourteen, but he
had committed so many thefts that some
members thought he should be hanged.
Here is the final decisions: "Looking on
him as a youth who may become a good
man, it was ordered that he be whipped
under the gallows and then sent away off
the island in the ship Resolution." It
seems that the Resolution was selected
because she was a dangerous, leaky vessel
which was expected to founder during the
voyage to England. However, the
sentence was regarded by the directors of
the English East India Company as far too
lenient. "We are ashamed that our aged
Governor should be guilty of so great a
folly," came the reprimand from London.

John Knipe complained to the island
council that Bridget Coales had failed to
marry him as promised. She sat on the lap
of the butcher of the ship Modena and let
him kiss her. Knipe asked her whether he

was not as good as the butcher,
whereupon she called him "down look
dog" and compared him with an old dog
owned by her father. Bridget had to pay
fifteen pounds damages.

According to the records, chaplains and
doctors were among the most troublesome
of the Company's officials stationed on
St. Helena during the eighteenth century.
"Dr. Wignall always drunk and nearly
killed the Governor by giving unsuitable
medicines, his excuse being he had
nothing else to give," runs an entry in
1725. "The doctor, for drunken and
disorderly conduct, placed in the stocks
for one hour, and he sung and swore the
whole time."

Seven years later it was recorded that Mr.
White the chaplain and his wife had for a
long time "led very scandalous and
immoral lives, the woman having been
drunk almost every day she has been on
the island, and Mr. White himself often in
the same condition and always rude and

troublesome." For sixteen months Mr.
White had neither dined nor supped with
his wife. This conduct was "highly
resented by all the good Dames of this
place, and we believe, and the woman
says, that this cold, unkind usage is the
cause of her giving herself up to liquor
and ill company." It is not clear from the
records how the Company dealt with
White.

Totty, a slave, was tried for running away
repeatedly and living a freebooter's life.
Members of the jury had suffered from
Totty 's raids, and they petitioned the
Governor to have Totty executed. This
was granted. He was drawn on a cart by
other runaway slaves to the place of
execution and hanged.

Those were hard times for slaves. Moll, a
slave woman owned by Mrs. Gurling, was
sentenced to three hundred lashes (to be
given in three instalments) and to be
branded on her cheek for breaking into a
country house and stealing one rupee. Yet

when George Alexander stripped his slave
Abigail and beat her cruelly with a
rawhide whip, he was fined forty
shillings. Even in 1810 a free black named
Nancy May was given two hundred lashes
for stealing fowls. She was tied to a cart,
wearing a paper bearing the words "Fowl
Stealer", and beaten in different parts of
the town.

Ladder Hill above Jamestown was known
in the earliest days of the English
settlement as Fort Hill. For a century the
gallows stood there. People on board
ships in the harbour and everyone in
Jamestown could see the bodies hanging
in chains, according to the brutal custom,
as a warning to others.

Sorcerers and witches were burnt to death.
Lawyers were deported "lest the people
should occupy their minds with litiga-
tion". (To this day there is not a lawyer in
private practice on the island.) There was
also a strong prejudice against such decent
folk as the Quakers. An entry in 1680

reads: "William Saddler is discovered to
be a Quaker, for which and other bad
behaviour he is ordered to leave the
island."

Ensign Slaughter, who was accused of
slandering the Governor, was flogged. If
you go through the records carefully to
the date when the sentence was carried
out, you will discover that the wretched
officer was flogged with wire whips and
fish hooks tied to a cane.

Men and women, white or black, were
usually stripped when flogged. An
unusual entry appears in 1733, when a
planter named John Long was sentenced
for receiving stolen yams from the Briars.
The warrant reads: "You are to whip the
said John Long publicly with ten lashes,
but in regard he hath been a planter here,
you may for this first time let him receive
the shame of this punishment with his
clothes on. You are to make your prisoner
fast to the tail of the wooden horse, and
read this to him before you whip him."

Soldiers of the St. Helena garrison loved
their taverns and punch-houses. When
these places were put out of bounds
towards the end of the eighteenth century,
the troops mutinied. Led by a sergeant,
they marched out of their barracks with
bayonets fixed and drums beating, aiming
at seizing the artillery and ammunition
depot on top of Ladder Hill. Governor
Corneille pacified them for a time; but the
mutiny soon broke out again with the
officers and a body of loyal men fighting
it out with the rest of the Company's
soldiers. They started with muskets and
ended with both sides using field guns. At
last the mutineers surrendered. Many of
them escaped in the darkness, mixed with
the loyal troops and pretended they had
played no part in the mutiny. All the
known mutineers were tried by court-
martial, and ninety-nine were condemned
to death. Even in those days the
authorities were reluctant to carry out a

mass slaughter, so the men drew lots and
one in ten was shot.

For stealing a piece of cloth from a sailor
in the street, one William Whaley was
hanged. Not many years later (in 1800) a
slave was hanged for snatching a bottle of
liquor from a drunken soldier. These
crimes were regarded as highway robbery.

St. Helena's most prominent landmark is
the great ridge on the north-east coast
known as the Barn. It dominates the
Longwood plain, and Napoleon must have
hated the sight of it; though nowadays
some people see an outline of Napoleon
on his death bed along the edge of the
Barn. Wild goats, descended from the
goats left by the Portuguese, have lived in
the inaccessible caves of the Barn for
centuries. You have to be a fine climber to
follow those goats along the narrow
ledges, and if you fall the sea is hundreds
of feet below. Nevertheless, these perilous
heights once provided a sanctuary for a

raider who is still remembered on the
island.

A party of islanders were stalking the wild
goats with shot guns and rifles one day in
1897, when there were more goats than
you will find now. Two brothers named
Legg were there with George Duncan; and
they related this queer tale to Mr. Edward
Constantine, the history lover, who passed
it on to me with meticulous accuracy.

The islanders followed a goat along a
dangerous "vein" on the west side,
clinging to a precipice which hangs over
the sea. Suddenly they came to a cave
with an entrance just large enough for a
man to squeeze inside. It looked as though
the stone "doorway" had been built by
human hands. "One man could keep an
army out of that cave," Constantine told
me. "A push, and an intruder would fall
three hundred feet into the sea."

Abandoning the goat hunt, the three
islanders climbed into the cave and

explored it. They found a bed made of
slate and other stones, a pair of blue cloth
trousers which fell to pieces when
touched, a stone club and a chopper made
from the heel of a scythe. A bag contained
ten pounds of salt; there was a good razor
wrapped in flannel; a whetstone, tinder-
box flint and steel; some jerked beef still
fit to eat; a bottle of water and a large
amount of island tobacco done up in rolls.
The cave dweller had made shelves of flat
stone slabs. A smaller cave had been used
as a kitchen.

This was the lair of an eccentric hermit
named Louden' s Ben, a deserter from a
Portuguese ship. Ben worked on the
Longwood farms for some years.

Then he went queer in the head,
and from time to time he would tell the
farmers: "The white goat on the Barn is
calling me." He would disappear for
weeks at a time. In 1874 he took to
raiding the poultry-runs and vegetable
patches, and fired on the police when they

tried to arrest him. After that he was never
seen again, though signs of his raids on
the farms were obvious enough. Some of
the boldest climbers on the island
searched the Barn, for everyone knew he
was there; but no one imagined that a
human being could reach the unknown
cave on the seaward side of the Barn
where Ben lived. The "vein" followed by
the goat-hunters must have been enlarged
by the passage of the goats when the
Leggs and Duncan reached the cave. Few
people indeed have visited the place from
that day to this, for it is still a most
formidable climb. The fate of Louden' s
Ben has never been settled, for no
skeleton was found; but he must have
fallen into the sea far below his cave. A
rock at the foot of the precipice is known
to the fishermen as Louden Ben's Rock.

I have said that St. Helena has known
only one murder in more than a century.
There was a public execution in 1850
(before Homagee's arrival) when a half-

caste named Lowry, a slave descendant,
murdered a servant girl at Fox's Folly,
near Napoleon's tomb.

St. Helena islanders are among the
mildest and most law abiding of people.
Thus the island was deeply shocked in
1881 when the news arrived that a St.
Helenan named Lefroy had been found
guilty of a revolting murder in a railway
compartment on the Brighton train. He
had shot and knifed an elderly man and
robbed him of money and a gold watch
and chain. Lefroy hid in a Stepney
boarding-house, but his landlady
identified him by a portrait in a
newspaper. That was the first occasion on
which a murderer was caught and hanged
as a result of that particular form of
publicity.

St. Helena itself remained undisturbed by
murder throughout the second half of last
century, but there was a sinister incident
in 1888 which might easily have ended in
murder. This was the arrival of Deeming,

a fugitive who was "wanted" for the
murder of eight women and several
children.

Deeming spent some weeks on St. Helena
in the hope of dodging the police. There
was no cable to the island at that time, and
no one suspected that he was a murderer.
He applied to the firm of Solomon for a
position as clerk, but - happily for the
island - he was turned down and left soon
afterwards. No doubt his murderous
instincts would have come to the surface
again. Deeming accosted and frightened a
number of island girls during his stay, but
went no further.

A fugitive of a different sort, but also
equipped with an alias, was living quietly
on St. Helena at this time and for long
afterwards. He was a Fenian conspirator
from Ireland named Robert Farrell, who
had turned Queen's evidence in a murder
trial and had been sent abroad by the
British authorities. Another informer,
James Carey, had been followed out of the

country and shot dead on board ship in
South African waters by a Fenian who
had sworn revenge. With this episode in
mind, the British Government decided
that St. Helena would be a safe place for
Farrell. And so it was. He spent many
years there, and was killed by an
accidental fall of rock at Rupert's Bay.

So little crime occurred during Governor
Sterndale's period of office (1897-1902)
that he was presented with white gloves at
all but two of the fourteen criminal
sessions over which he presided. Not long
afterwards the long, bloodless period was
broken. It was late in October 1904 that a
young signalman named Robert Gunnell
bought a gold chain and pendant in Mrs.
George's shop in Jamestown. He told
Mrs. George that this jewellery was a
present for his girl, and that he hoped she
would marry him. Gunnell went back
happily to Prosperous Bay signal station,
for he had been accepted.

On the first of November a police
constable at Longwood heard the report of
a gun in the distance, and thought
someone was shooting rabbits. Next day,
however, there was no response to a
telephone call to the Prosperous Bay
signal station. When the police arrived,
poor Gunnell was lying dead with a
shotgun wound in the back of his head.

Suspicion fell immediately on two
brothers, Richard and Lewis Crowie, idle
fellows who had already been convicted
of several robberies. The Crowies were
arrested and taken to the home of
Constable Constantine at Longwood.
While they were there, Constantine' s little
daughter saw Lewis Crowie throw a gold
watch into the hedge. It was Gunnell' s
watch.

Soon afterwards the Crowies signed a
confession. They had stolen a shotgun and
cartridges from Mr. Bassett Legg in
Jamestown, and then walked to the signal
station and told Gunnell that they had

been fishing. Gunnell lived alone. He
invited the Crowies to tea, and they were
about to sit down when one of the
Crowies shouted: "There's a ship out
there." Gunnell went to fetch his
telescope, and while his back was turned
one of the brothers shot him from behind.

Lt.-Col. Sir Henry Galway, Governor and
Chief justice, presided at the trial. The
jury returned with a unanimous verdict of
guilty, and sentence of death was passed.
Galway then set about finding a hangman.
He thought it would be a difficult task, for
there was no official executioner on the
island. Among the troops on St. Helena
was a company of Lancashire Fusiliers.
They were paraded at the Governor's
request, and their captain asked for two
volunteers to act as hangmen, each man to
receive five pounds. "Volunteers - one
pace forward ... march!" yelled the
sergeant major. Ninety men stepped
forward. Two were selected.

Next day, however, Corporal Shoesmith
of the police and John Williams,
government carpenter, called on Sir Henry
Galway and pointed out how unfair it
would be to allow so much money to go
to outsiders. They were both old soldiers,
and they claimed that they should have
been given first refusal of the job.

Galway gave them the job. The carpenter
built the gallows in the old wood store
next to the gaol at the foot of Jacob's
Ladder. The Crowie brothers were
executed on February 2, 1905. "It taught
me that every man has his price,"
commented Sir Henry Galway. "I must
say that those two amateurs performed
their duty like old hands."

That was St. Helena's last murder, and I
think the rest of this century will pass
without another call for volunteers.
During my month on the island, in
December 1954, the skeleton of a
European woman aged about thirty was
found embedded in sand at Sandy Bay.

The teeth were perfect, without fillings.
There was no possible means of
identification, but rumours that the
woman had been murdered ran round the
island. Some said it was the skeleton of
the actress, Eileen "Gay" Gibson,
murdered at sea by the steward Camb and
pushed through the porthole.
Superintendent Ogborn of the St. Helena
Police decided against the murder theory.
This was probably a victim of an enemy
submarine in World War II, washed up
and buried in sand, and uncovered more
than a decade later by the restless sea.

If you settle on St. Helena you can rule
out all crimes of violence and sleep with
your doors and windows unlocked.
Burglaries are rare, and when they do
occur it is usually found that the hungry
burglar has left the valuables untouched
and spent all his time in the pantry.

Chapter 23
Some Found Happiness

DRIVE OUT of Jamestown by the steep
Side Path road, and after a mile you may
look down on one of those fine country
estates for which St. Helena is famous.
This is "The Briars". At a glance you can
understand why Napoleon felt so strongly
drawn to the place as he rode past during
his first day of exile on the island.

"The Briars" was a yam plantation and
government farm in the seventeenth
century. When the Emperor noticed it, the
place was privately owned and shaded by
a variety of beautiful trees. Among the
great laurels and palms stood a quaint
little pavilion. Napoleon rode up the drive

and asked whether he could move into the
pavilion immediately.

William Balcombe, owner of "The Briars"
was a fat, wealthy man who lived well.
According to island legend, he was an
illegitimate son of the Prince Regent of
England. He was a banker, ship's
chandler, and East India Company's
financial agent. Balcombe and his wife
entertained generously, and gave dances
in the pavilion, of oriental design, which
had caught Napoleon's eye. They offered
Napoleon their own house, but he did not
wish to disturb them. So that day
Napoleon occupied the dancing pavilion,
a single room with two doors and six
windows, while his servants pitched tents
and his chef prepared dinner in an arbour.

In recent years the pavilion has become a
complete house, the home of the cable
station manager. It is still a charming
place. I found the view and the climate
pleasing; for "The Briars" stands above
the heat of the valley yet below the mists

which some find depressing. Much of the
original design and ornate decoration
remain unaltered. I copied the plaque
beside the front door: "The Duke of
Wellington stayed in this house when he
returned from India in July 1805. The
Emperor Napoleon also lived here from
the 18th of October until the 10th of
December 1815, before taking up his
residence at Longwood House."

Those were Napoleon's happiest weeks
on St. Helena, I imagine. He formed his
friendship with mischievous, precocious,
fourteen year-old Betsy Balcombe, with
her blue eyes and blonde curls. She stole
his papers, accused him of eating frogs,
swung a sabre dangerously round his
head, denounced him for cheating at cards
and slapped the face of the courtier Las
Cases. The bungalow where the
Balcombes lived is in ruins, but I peered
into the cellar where Betsy was locked up
all night as a punishment. She spent the

It is still a charming place. I found the climate
pleasing.

Among the great laurels and palms stood a quaint little pavilion. Napoleon rode up the drive and asked
whether he could move into the pavilion immediatley.

dark hours terror-stricken, throwing her
father's wine bottles at the rats.

What a place to live, amid such
memories! I wandered in the old garden
where the wild dog-roses called briars
grow to this day; and I pictured Napoleon
talking to the slave gardener Toby, the
man whose freedom he tried to buy. In
Balcombe's time this estate produced
many of the fruits of Europe and Africa;
and after Balcombe had fed his own large
household, the surplus fetched six
hundred pounds a year. Balcombe had a
brewery there, too. Yet in spite of these
profitable enterprises, Balcombe ran into
debt and finally, sold the lovely place to
Isaac Moss, partner and close relative of
the first Saul Solomon.

"The Briars" became a silk worm farm in
1828, a man named Walker having paid
nine thousand pounds for it. Mulberry
groves were planted. A Chinese labourer
was sent all the way to China, returning
with the silk worms. However, the venture

failed. Saul Solomon bought "The Briars"
for four hundred pounds; later the Moss
family regained possession of "The
Briars" and lived there for decades last
century. Miss Phoebe Moss was
responsible for importing and releasing
the mynah birds which are now too
plentiful, and too fond of fruit. She also
introduced South African frogs, but these
appear to be harmless.

Early this century the Eastern Telegraph
Company bought "The Briars" and moved
up from the house at Rupert's Bay where
the cable was landed. Cable companies
used to send pre-fabricated buildings of
uniform design to their outposts; and these
bungalows now stand among the banyans
and bananas. For many years, cables were
sent by hand and besides the executives
there were forty operators, all bachelors,
living at "The Briars". The old estate
became the social centre of the island.
Many servants were employed. The forty
bachelors had forty ponies, a bowling

green, a library with thousands of books,
and a mess where guests were entertained
magnificently. Some of the servants built
cottages round the estate, so that people
talked of "The Briars village". It is hardly
a village, though it is the only group of
houses outside Jamestown on the island
which might possibly rank as a hamlet.

Not far from "The Briars" is Chubb's
Spring, where Napoleon sometimes
walked. Captain Bennet of the infantry
had a house at the spring in those days;
and when Napoleon died, Bennet gave his
handsome dining-room table so that the
carpenter could make a coffin.

On the road just above "The Briars" is
Button-up Corner. The change of climate
is so sudden that the riders of old buttoned
their greatcoats. Near here a path runs to a
cottage where the island's lepers are
segregated; just two or three afflicted
people living amid great beauty. Still
climbing, you come to Alarm House,
where two guns were placed towards the

end of the seventeenth century to fire a
signal when ships were sighted. Here, too,
is Alarm Cottage, which can be hired by
visitors complete with a skilled St. Helena
cook, and at such a reasonable rate that
you seem to have stepped back into the
past. On the farm outside you can study
the island produce growing abundantly.
No house on St. Helena nowadays fetches
as much as it cost to build. Alarm Cottage,
with several acres of good agricultural
land, changed hands at five hundred
pounds when last it was sold.

Now the road skirts the great hollow
called the Devil's Punchbowl and the
empty, nameless tomb where Napoleon's
body lay from 1821 to 1840. I believe that
he only visited the site of his grave once
in his life, and drank from a spring. You
find a cottage and a caretaker at this spot;
once the tomb was guarded by a French
army sergeant, but now a St. Helenan
tends this little patch of France within the
iron railings. The caretaker comes out

with glasses on a tray so that visitors may
drink from Napoleon's spring.

Perhaps you remember the incident when
Napoleon's funeral ended and his French
followers broke off a few branches from
the willow over the grave before returning
to Longwood. That willow died soon after
World War II, but cuttings were known to
have been taken to Australia. Slips from
the Australian offshoots were nurtured, on
instructions from General Smuts, by the
forestry department near Stellenbosch;
and they were planted at the tomb on the
one hundred and twenty-eighth
anniversary of Napoleon's death.

The road to Longwood leads past Halley's
Mount, where the seventeenth century
comet discoverer set up his telescope to
observe a transit of Mercury, but failed
owing to mist. It goes on past Hutt's Gate,
though there was never a man named
Hutt; the huts of the slaves stood there.

Longwood and the neighbouring
Deadwood once formed one property
known as the Great Wood. Old plans
show this large, deep forest. Melliss,
writing in 1875, declared there were
people still living in St. Helena who
remembered losing their way in the
Longwood gum forests. The area had
become a grassy plain with hardly a tree.
"I searched in vain for forest trees and
shrubs that flourished in tens of thousands
not a century ago," wrote Melliss.
"Probably one hundred St. Helena plants
have thus disappeared since the first
introduction of goats on the island. Every
one of these was a link in the chain of
created beings, which contained within
itself evidence of the affinities of other
species, both living and extinct, but which
evidence is now irrecoverably lost."
Today it is hard to believe that people
vanished in the forests described by
Melliss, and were never seen again.

Goats cannot destroy full-grown forests.
What happened was that the old trees died
and the goats destroyed the saplings.
Governor Beatson imported many exotics
early last century; English broom and
brambles, Scotch pines and gorse, bushes
from the Cape. These new growths
overran the island and extinguished much
of the indigenous flora. Beatson also
destroyed most of the goats, but he was
too late.

Deadwood Plain, of course, was covered
with the tents of Boer prisoners of war,
mainly Transvaalers, in the first years of
this century. Old people in St. Helena still
speak well of the prisoners. They had the
sympathy of the islanders, and it was
considered a huge joke when they
succeeded in eluding their guards and
reaching the taverns of Jamestown
unobserved. One man, an Englishman by
birth who had fought for the Boers,
married an island girl and opened a
bakery. "Boer" Smith, as he is called, was

still living in retirement on the island
while I was there. Indeed, he had only left
the island once, to see his mother.

Such a wealth of history, so much
literature has grown up round Longwood
that I had intended to skirt Longwood Old
House with no more than a passing
mention. The Napoleonic legend has
overshadowed an island which has seen
many dramatic episodes apart from the
Captivity period. However, I spent a
morning at Longwood and became
hypnotised, as so many other writers have
done before me.

I saw Longwood almost as Napoleon left
it. You may remember that the old
farmhouse reverted to its original purpose
after Napoleon's death. For some years
the farm was owned and worked by a
member of the Moss family. The rooms,
sacred to all who respect the relics of
history, became storerooms and stables;
even the salon where Napoleon died.
Souvenir hunters looted the place and

scribbled their names on the walls. Even
the wallpaper was torn off by visitors.
Rats took up their abode in ceilings and
floors.

France gained possession of Longwood a
century ago, and some restoration was
carried out. Longwood has known many
vicissitudes, but in recent years no money
has been spared in preserving the historic
farmhouse. Furniture and other articles
used by Napoleon have been sent back to
Longwood, some from France, others
from different parts of St. Helena. I saw
the globes of the earth and the sky,
bearing the marks of Napoleon's finger-
nails. There were the sideboards used by
the priest Vignali when he celebrated
Mass. The original copper bath, where
Napoleon lay dictating his memoirs, was
back in its place. And I rolled a ball by
hand over the billiard table, following
Napoleon's custom.

I walked in the garden, too, along those
deep paths which Napoleon followed

because the hated sentries could not see
him. Pending under the wind was a tree of
the cypress species, and an evergreen oak,
which were there in Napoleon's day. I
thought of the years of wind and rain
which the French exiles endured at
Longwood. (The island golf club is at
Longwood, but few people who know the
island would care to live in such an
exposed spot.) Napoleon needed the
garden walls and the pergola with the
passion vine.

Longwood must have been an
uncomfortable place in Napoleon's day. I
went up the stairs and walked under the
slate roof, and I was surprised to hear that
the servants lived in those crowded garrets
over the rooms of Napoleon's staff. At
one period there were more than fifty
people, masters and servants, herded in
this farmhouse.

In the yard I noticed a small out-building
attached to a wall and inquired innocently:
"Was that Napoleon's lavatory?" My

guide replied with dignity: "The Emperor
used only a commode."

Labourers digging in the garden while I
was at Longwood brought to the surface
scraps and fragments which called the
Captivity to my eyes more vividly than
any of the museum pieces. They found
buttons of the St. Helena Regiment, coins
bearing the names of Solomon, Dickson
and Taylor, and the very broken glass of
the wine bottles which caused so much
trouble with the Governor, Sir Hudson
Lowe. Perhaps you did not realise that
even Napoleon was supposed to return his
empty bottles. They disposed of a
thousand bottles of wine a month at
Longwood. I will not say they drank so
much, for there is evidence that
Napoleon's servants sold wine to the
soldiers of the guard. Sir Hudson Lowe
was appalled by the cost, and asked for
the return of the empties. To show their
contempt, Napoleon's servants broke
many bottles deliberately. Lowe was

extremely angry when he found the
shattered glass in the garden, and
threatened to cut off the Emperor's wine.
So the gardeners still unearth these relics.
The pieces they showed me were
fragments of champagne bottles, with
thick green glass.

Across the valley from Longwood stands
a country-house now called Teutonic Hall,
but once the residence of the Miss Polly
Mason who was said to have signalled to
Napoleon. She was an eccentric old maid
who rode about the island on an ox.
Napoleon liked visiting her; but there was
never a love affair with her or anyone else
to lighten Napoleon's exile. Napoleon's
servants, however, left children on the
island. His valet, Marchand, had two
children by an island girl named Esther
Vesey, and was rebuked for it. All the
servants were more or less free to roam
Jamestown, thus adding a very small
French strain to the island mixture.

Thousands who call at St. Helena,
spending part of a day before their ship
moves on, carry away nothing more than a
few impressions of Jamestown and the
drive of five miles to Longwood. This is
better than nothing, but there is time for
more. St. Helena is an island of quaint and
beautiful names and memorable places.
Anyone who fails to gaze upon the Sandy
Bay scene misses one of the seven
wonders of the seas. This district is part of
a great volcanic crater; a basin composed
of naked black mountains, fantastic peaks,
volcanic vents, ridges and ravines, varied
by the rich green botanical wonders of the
island summit.

I looked out over this staggering
panorama from Rose Cottage, home of the
Lunns, who were previously in Uganda.
They bought Rose Cottage and an acre of
garden for seven hundred pounds a few
years ago. Pheasants are a nuisance in the
garden, but they have fowls and ducks,
rabbits and sheep. A very old Seville

orange tree probably came from Spain or
Portugal. Plum trees yield enormous
crops.

Mr. Lunn pointed out the Sandy Bay
landmarks. Most prominent of all is the
spiral rock called Lot, rising nearly three
hundred feet above the hill on which it
stands. It has been climbed, but only at
great risk. Mutinous slaves once took
refuge in a cave at the foot of Lot. They
held out for days, rolling stones down on
their attackers. According to the records,
"a brisk young man named Worrall"
climbed Lot behind and above the slaves.
"Then they hove down rocks in their turn
and beat down the chief of the slaves so
much bruised that he died, at which all the
people in Sandy Bay had great
satisfaction, for they had suffered much
from them."

Beyond the Lot rock are Lot's Wife and
the Asses' Ears. Here, too, in the volcanic
upheaval are the Devil's Garden and the
Gates of Chaos. I saw the black face of

Cole's Rock, where the slave-owner Cole
was just about to flog one of his men
when all the other slaves turned on him
and threw him over the cliff.

Jenkins, the man whose ear caused so
much trouble when it was cut off by the
Spaniards - the War of Jenkins' Ear, you
remember - once lived in this crater. He
was governor of the island in 1741, and
his old house Lemon Grove has a plaque
in the wall. Some of the East India
Company's gardens were in this huge
bowl, irrigated by the best stream in the
island. Date palms are old and enormous,
and there are many pomegranates. Virgin
Hall, a very old estate, still produces fine
vegetables and bananas of the best
flavour. Rats feed on wild olives. The
Sandy Bay beach, where a party of Boer
War prisoners seized a boat and tried to
escape, has been washed away. Fishing
boats no longer use it, and there are times
when even a turtle would find landing
dangerous. Barracks and cannon of the

old fort on the shore have fallen into the
sea.

Grandest of the residences above Sandy
Bay is Mount Pleasant, visited more than
once by Napoleon. The owner at that time
was Mr. (later Sir) William Doveton, born
and brought up on the island, and
possessed of a simple island outlook.
Napoleon brought his own food from
Longwood, and Doveton thought it was
indeed a sumptuous breakfast -
champagne, cold pie, potted meat, cold
turkey, curried fowl, ham, dates, almonds,
oranges, salad and coffee. Cason's is
another high estate, named after an officer
who commanded the troops under seven
governors. Bamboo Hedge is a flax mill
nowadays. Blarney House, Blarney
bridge, and the old dairy farm called
Fairyland are also in this neighbourhood.

You will have gathered that St. Helena is
an island of quaint and beautiful names.
Dolly's Chop House has vanished, but
Distant Cottage is still there; far in the

south of the island beyond Lot's Wife
Wood. West Lodge has a ghost legend. A
slave was flogged to death there, and a
slave orchestra played to drown his cries.
They say you can still hear that music.
Someone played a practical joke there on
a soldier of the St. Helena garrison during
World War II. The victim had to have
mental treatment.

Mount Eternity, Rosemary Hall, Myrtle
Grove, Wild Ram Spring, Spyglass, Blue
Point, Willow Cottage, Chinaman's, Rock
Rose, Lazy Point, Silver Hill ... my large-
scale St. Helena map is worth the five
shillings I paid for it at the Castle. The
names remind me of many a ramble, and
many an eyrie where I stood and dreamt
of all the pages of this dramatic island's
story. Such a place was the High Knoll
fortress. I found the massive doors wide
open and the whole place deserted, from
dungeons to powder magazines; deserted
except by the wild goats that seemed to
accentuate the weird atmosphere. I

thought of the old mutineers who were
blindfolded and shot against the grey
walls last century. I remembered that Boer
prisoners who tried to escape were locked
in this fortress. And I felt glad that I could
walk out without a sentry to stop me, and
find my car and drive away.

Knollcombes is a happier memory. Sir
George Bingham once lived there; the
man who saw a fourteen-year-old slave
girl with her back bleeding after a
whipping, and thereupon started the
movement which led to the abolition of
slavery on the island. But the house Bing-
ham occupied was in ruins, thanks to the
white ant which has eaten so many St.
Helena homes. I discovered fragments of
a spinet, the piano of the eighteenth
century, lying among the remnants of
furniture. Knollcombes is now the
property of the retired army officer you
met playing cricket in the yard of the
hotel. He was planning a new house on
the old place. I walked round the garden

with him, and saw that he would have
peaches and guavas on his table, and pine
logs to burn, and pheasant in season. St.
Helena is a long way out of the world, but
those who do not fear solitude will find
peace there.

Just above Knollcombes is the Baptist
chapel, and the graveyard where Boer
prisoners who died on the island were
buried. Two of them were boys of sixteen,
two were men over seventy. All the names
are inscribed on the two memorial pillars.
The graveyard is always neat. In a
neighbouring cemetery there is an
impressive obelisk in memory of
Governor Hudson Ralph Janisch, who was
also an historian and an astronomer. Only
one previous official born in St. Helena
had become governor. Janisch was the
eldest son of G. W. Janisch, confidential
clerk to Sir Hudson Lowe during the
Captivity. He never left the island, but
became a magistrate and then served
various governors so well that he was

recommended for the highest position
himself. When he was appointed,
however, the governor's salary was
reduced from £2000 a year to £900.
Hudson Janisch had the confidence of the
islanders, and governed them well from
1873 to 1884, a hard period in the island's
history, when more than fifteen hundred
St. Helenans emigrated to the Cape.
Janisch was the first official to recognise
the value of the archives in the Castle at
Jamestown. He indexed the records and
found many episodes for his "Extracts
from the St. Helena Records". His
descendants left the island and settled in
Cape Town, but some of them still visit
the island where the first two Janischs
helped to make history.

Four generations of Janischs have ridden
on the tortoise which is pointed out to
every visitor in the grounds of Plantation
House, the governor's residence. Visitors
are informed that this tortoise (probably
from Mauritius) is a living link with

Just above Knollcombes is the Baptist chapel and the graveyard where Boer prisoners were buried.
Two of them were boys of sixteen, two were men over seventy.

Napoleon. In fact, it was landed as
recently as 1858, when there were already
two giant tortoises of the same species
chewing the governor' s lawn. One died in
1877, and the shell was sent to the
London Natural History museum. There
was an aged female which the millionaire
Rothschild tried to buy, but his offer was
refused. This tortoise was accidentally
killed by falling over a cliff. The survivor
is a male, but its exact age is unknown.

Plantation House, with its farm of more
than a hundred acres, is one of the island's
oldest and most pleasant estates. The
house was built in 1792, but Sir Hudson
Lowe added the present library, billiard
room and other amenities. St. Helena is
the starting point in a colonial governor's
career. There must have been many past
governors who rose to much greater
positions, but who looked back wistfully
on their years in charming little Plantation
House.

Doubtless the heyday of Plantation House
was the Captivity period, for Sir Hudson
Lowe's salary was £12,000 a year. Lowe
had two large farms producing free of
charge the food which enabled him to
entertain generously. The company's
slaves worked as labourers, and there
were many skilled Chinese on the estate.
But I do not think Lowe ever enjoyed
himself. He was too worried, too full of
fear that Napoleon would escape, too
conscious of his responsibilities.

Rooms at Plantation House have old brass
plates with the positions of those who
occupied them many years ago:
Governor's Room, Admiral's Room,
General's Room, Baron's Room. One
room is labelled "Chaos", and here a
poltergeist is said to disturb the fine old
furniture occasionally. I must say that the
friendly and homely atmosphere of
Plantation House did not suggest a
haunted mansion to me.

One memorable Sunday, thanks to
Inspector Ogborn of the police, I circum-
navigated St. Helena in the motor-launch
Yellowfin. Several islanders among the
inspector's guests confessed that it was
the first time they had cruised all the way
round their lonely island. We towed a gig
as a lifeboat; for it might mean shipwreck
if the engine failed on the uninhabited,
wave-lashed stretches of the island's
weather side.

At first the coastline was familiar, for I
had been out fishing with Charlie Wade as
far as Egg Island. There were the goat-
tracks across the seaward face of Ladder
Hill, often used by daring islanders
following stray goats, or gathering wild
pepper and wild tobacco on the cliffs, or
hunting wild rabbits in the caves. I still
shudder when I think of the precipices
surrounding that island. Many islanders
have gone out, never to return; though all
knew that they had either fallen to their
deaths or been swept off the rocks.

Charlie Wade told me about three brothers
who had all vanished at different times.
"Must have bin a drowning family,"
remarked Charlie calmly.

Every valley has its ruins. Steering west
about from Jamestown, you come first to
Breakneck Valley, barred by a Dutch
wall. Young's Valley was defended in the
same way, but the name is fairly recent. It
seems that Young had a garden with yams
and bananas in the narrow valley, and
lived there happily until his wife fell ill.
The doctor advised him to move, for the
valley is isolated. Then his wife died.

"Same man Young what was dwelling
here drowned hisself two years
afterwards," Charlie Wade ended. "He
was a bit daft, see ... jumped over."

My favourite St. Helena valley, the place I
would select for a retreat from
civilisation, is Lemon Valley. More than
two centuries ago a Dutch squadron from
Table Bay landed soldiers there, but the

One memorable Sunday I circumnavigated St. Helena in the motor-launch Yellowfin.

English threw large stones over the cliff
and beat them off. Never-theless, the
Dutch captured the island and built a
dizzy fort on the cliff overlooking the
Lemon Valley landing place; and they
threw the usual defensive wall across the
mouth of the valley.

Lemon Valley was once the watering
place of the East India ships. Then a
landslide occurred, and the taste and
colour of the water were affected.
However, there is a stream which never
dries up, and though the lemons have
vanished there are still a few guava and
banana trees. A solid stone house, used as
quarantine station and barracks for the
garrison in World War II, now lacks
doors, windows and floors. As I roamed
the deserted valley I felt that a hermit who
was also a handyman could soon put
things in order, grow enough fruit and
vegetables and catch enough fish to
support himself.

This time the Yellowfin slipped past my
imaginary paradise. I saw the bird rocks
again, where the black crabs come out
into the sunshine. There was Creepy
Cove, so called because it is impossible to
climb along the cliffs unless you creep on
all fours. Then came Horse Pasture Point,
with the sea booming in the caves at water
level; noddies nesting in a guano cave.

Egg Island is a huge white waterless rock
where the Dutch set up cannon and left a
few unhappy soldiers to repel invaders. At
rare intervals the tide will allow you to
walk from the island to the mainland.
Police sergeant Dillon told me that he
explored Egg Island with Dr. Gosse, the
historian, some years ago and found some
cannon balls, coins and military buttons.
Dillon was in the guano trade before he
joined the police. He knows the rotten
rock of his native island, and he spent
months working desolate Bosun Bird Islet
at Ascension. ("We had to dig our own
'graves' in the guano to sleep on Bosun

Bird - and the lice nearly ate us up,"
Dillon recalled.) Dillon said there was
guano on the cliffs at Frying Pan Cove,
inside Egg Island, but it was a dangerous
place for a boat. The usual system was for
a man to be lowered over the cliff in a
bo'sun's chair with a bag between his
legs. This man chopped the solid guano
off the cliff with a hammer, filled the bag,
and then sent the bag down to a boat. If
there was an overhang, the man in the
chair drove pegs into the cliff, then made
the chair fast to dead-eyes on the pegs and
hauled himself below the bulge. It was a
pretty desperate game, he declared, and
only a few men on St. Helena had the
nerve to do it. With guano at £15 a ton it
was more or less worth the risk. Frying
Pan Cove was a nightmare, however,
because you had to work without the aid
of a boat. Moreover, the men who
lowered the chair could not see what the
man in the chair was doing. The sacks of
guano had to be hauled up the cliff when

they were full. Special whistle signals
were given for each stage in the operation.

Members of the Phillips family are about
the only real guano experts left on St.
Helena, apart from Dillon. There is old
man Phillips working with a son and a
son-in-law. Another son worked with the
team, but one day they hauled up the chair
and there was no one in it. "Maybe a stone
struck him," suggested Dillon. "He must
have fallen out of the chair and got
drowned."

From the Yellowfin I saw the five rocks
and islets where the seabirds nest: Egg,
Peaked, Speery, George and Shore Island.
All are close inshore. Speery is the most
dramatic; a pinnacle rock where you
would imagine that even the birds would
find it hard to move. Yet men climb that
rock, work the guano and sleep on the
summit.

Most common among the seabirds is the
White-capped Noddy, known to the

islanders as the Noddy Bird. Another
species of Noddy (called "Blackbird"
locally) is vicious, and men collecting
guano have to guard their heads. But the
most spectacular bird of these waters is
the Red-billed Tropic Bird (the "Trophy-
bird" of the islanders), which nests in the
cliffs. They have a way of dropping off
the ledges to launch themselves in the air,
and it is said that they cannot rise on the
wing from level ground.

Many birds of St. Helena were captured
alive or shot for sale to visitors up to
about sixty years ago. Tropic Birds were
killed for their plumes, which then
adorned women's hats. The interesting St.
Helena Sandplover, or Wire Bird, was
trapped and sold in cages. This land bird
is believed to be the only indigenous bird
of the island; it was noticed by very early
travellers. Fortunately the trade in birds
was stopped towards the end of last
century, or several species would have
been exterminated by now. Major E. L.

Haydock, the ornithologist, located only
about one hundred pairs of Wire Birds on
the island a few years ago.

Dillon told me there must have been rare
birds on St. Helena "in the before days".
He found a pair of avian feet on Shore
Island once, large feet different from the
feet of any bird frequenting the island
today. These mysterious skeleton feet
were buried deep in the guano, and Dillon
is still wondering what the whole bird
looked like.

"Sea's a bit rugged today," declared the
islanders as the Yellowfin plunged into
the seas off Sandy Bay, and the spray
came over. But as we left the last of the
bird islands astern the launch was running
before the trade wind, moving easily until
she came into the calmer waters of
Prosperous Bay. There the party landed,
and I looked up to the heights and saw the
old, disused signal station where poor
Gunnell was so stupidly murdered. Dillon
told me a happier story of Prosperous

Bay. He once found a four hundred pound
turtle some way inland, where it had gone
to lay its eggs; and he sold it at five pence
a pound. Here, too, are more ruins - the
battery and a fort built to keep any
possible friends of Napoleon away from
the anchorage.

It was at Prosperous Bay that the English
landed in 1673 to recapture the island
from the Dutch. Captain Kedgwin took
four hundred men on shore, using a clever
negro slave named Black Oliver as guide.
It was long odds against the assault
succeeding, for the whole force had to
scale a cliff with a last perilous section
which demands a rope. A fine climber
named Tom climbed the last section
without any sort of aid, and then lowered
a rope by which the four hundred men
reached Longwood Plain. As each man
came up, hand over hand, he called out:
"Hold fast, Tom!" (This point on the cliff
has been marked as Holdfast Tom on the
maps ever since then.) Meanwhile Captain

Munden was bombarding Jamestown
from the sea. The Dutch surrendered.
Prosperous Bay gained its name as a
result of the British victory. Someone had
to climb down the Holdfast Tom cliff
when Napoleon died, for there is a
gypsum deposit there and this was used
for the controversial death mask. Another
account, however, states that the gypsum
was fetched hurriedly from George Island
by whaleboat.

Sail on round the sinister cliffs of Turk's
Cap and the Barn, round Buttermilk Point,
past Half Moon Battery and you come to
Rupert's Bay. This opens up another
secluded, almost forgotten yet lovely
valley which seems to be waiting for an
escapist.

Rupert was a prince, son of the King of
Bohemia, who anchored in the bay to
refresh his ship's company a couple of
hundred years ago. Ever since then the
islanders have called it Rupert's Valley.
William Burchell the botanist of South

African fame occupied a house in
Rupert's Valley early last century. He
landed on St. Helena by accident, became
deeply interested in the plants, and stayed
on as schoolmaster. For five years he
investigated the botany and geology of the
island, and he sent many specimens to
England. It was due to Burchell's
experiments that the island was proved to
be a suitable place for coffee and cotton.
He sailed for the Cape in 1810, to embark
on the expeditions which led to greater
achievements.

Freed slaves were housed in Rupert's
Valley a century ago. Many thousands of
slaves rested there, recovering from the
ordeal of the holds, before they were sent
on to work as free labourers in the West
Indies. Melliss the naturalist boarded a
captured slaver just as she anchored in
Rupert's Bay in 1861, and gave this
impression: "I picked my way from end to
end in order to avoid treading upon the
slaves. The deck was thickly strewn with

the dead, dying and starved bodies. A visit
to a fully-freighted slave ship is not easily
to be forgotten; a scene so intensified in
all that is horrible almost defies
description." Bishop Gray was another
shocked visitor to Rupert's Bay at that
period. "If anything were needed to fill
the soul with burning indignation against
that masterwork of Satan, the Slave Trade,
it would be a visit to this institution," he
wrote. "There were not less than six
hundred poor souls in it. Of these more
than three hundred were in hospital; some
affected with dreadful ophthalmia; others
with severe rheumatism, others with
dysentery, the number of deaths in a week
being twenty-one."

It was a slave ship, of course, which
brought the white ant to St. Helena.
Within thirty years Jamestown had been
devastated, and the ant had created havoc
all over the island before the end of the
century.

"In the shipping days," as the islanders
say, when fifteen hundred ships a year
called and it was not so hard for a man to
earn a living, Jamestown was
overcrowded. One governor of a century
ago suggested that a suburb should be
built in Rupert's Valley. This was done,
but a scheme for linking the two valleys
by a tunnel was never carried out. At that
time, too, a governor sent to England for a
wooden prefabricated building called a
"model gaol". It was set up in Rupert's
Valley. Not long afterwards a prisoner
who disliked all gaols, model or other-
wise, put a match to it. Within an hour it
had been destroyed. Other buildings of the
period are still there, but mainly in ruins.
One good double-storeyed house, with a
plaque in honour of Burchell and palms
and bananas, is used by the cable
company; for you can see the deep-sea
cable emerging from the ocean and
crossing the beach. The whole waterfront
is barricaded in the familiar St. Helena

fashion by an old fort wall. A chimney
and boilers were pointed out to me as
relics of the South African War, for they
formed a distilling plant to supply the
prisoner-of-war camps.

Shortly before World War II a solitary
leper was living at Rupert's Bay, passing
the time with a gramophone and a number
of old records. He is no longer there, and I
imagine that it would not cost much to
rent a house in the valley.

I walked along the cliff paths one Sunday
afternoon from Jamestown to Rupert's
Bay, and it was a walk to remember.
Often I dared not look over the low stone
wall. There is an inlet along the route
called Rowland's Cove, scene of several
fatal accidents owing to rock falls and
people slipping over the edge. St. Helena
is an island of incredible residences, and I
saw one that afternoon. The house was
built into a ledge in the cliff, there was a
palm tree apparently growing out of the
rock, and you could have dropped a

fishing-line into the sea from any of the
front windows. A painter could have
made a remarkable canvas of that quaint
eyrie, but I was always conscious of the
heights.

Well, you have circled St. Helena and the
launch Yellowfin is back on her moorings
off Jamestown in the bay which has
known so much sea adventure. I fancy
that I can see the earliest sailors of all
landing on the beach, taking what they
wished in goats and swine and fruit,
carving records of their visits on rocks
and trees, and sailing away with their
memories of the uninhabited mid-ocean
paradise. "Providence has bestowed upon
it all that is best of air, earth and water,"
declared Francois Pyrard. "Nowhere in
the world, I believe, will you find an
island of its size to compare with it."

Some people in St. Helena still hold that
opinion, and they are not all islanders.
There are others among the white
community who regard themselves as

exiles; they wish their lives away, looking
forward always to the next holiday in
England, or the next transfer to some less-
isolated colony. What is the truth?

There is no truth for all. I was told of a
woman, suffering acutely from a nervous
complaint, who went to stay with well-
meaning friends on St. Helena; for they
thought the utter peace of the island
would cure her. Instead, it brought on the
most serious emotional attack she had
ever known. The ship left, and she felt
trapped. It was claustrophobia in a
dangerous form. Heaven alone knows
what would have happened to her if a ship
had not put in by sheer chance a few days
later and carried her thankfully away.

Another woman who was merely bored
after a year or two on the island remarked
to me: "I prefer bridge to conversation
here. You go round and round meeting the
same people and hearing the same
subjects discussed time after time. It's like
going on for years in the same ship with

the same passengers. A man has his work;
but a woman is to be pitied."

Then there was the wife of a well-
educated, well-travelled man who had
nevertheless spent most of his life on the
island. She had been born elsewhere. "I
am afraid that I am here for life, and I feel
it," she summed up. "I dare not make
close friends, for in a few years they pass
on to a tour of duty elsewhere and are lost
to me. In any case it is hard to make
friends - the circle is too narrow."

Yet I remember, too, a man who seemed
happy - a settler who had tried other
paradise islands and left them in disgust,
and found peace on St. Helena. The war
had been unkind to him, I know, and he
deserved to find what he had been
seeking. "I don't see why I should be
called an escapist simply because I have
chosen to live in a place where the people
do not hate one another," he declared.

I cannot quarrel with that test, but there is
another which I would have to apply
successfully to find the island of my
dreams. It is pleasant to see well-
nourished people round one. You can
enjoy your own meals far more if the
general standard of living is not so very
far below your own. Now as I have said,
the St. Helena people are not starving.
Certainly they are not well-fed. I gave a
small boy a shilling for carrying my fish
up from the wharf, and asked him what he
would do with the money. He looked up
at me in surprise. "Give it to my mother to
buy bread," he replied. "Lots o' people
here werry poor, mister."

Just before I sailed from St. Helena I was
taken to see a woman of ninety-seven. Her
father and mother had been slaves. She
had married at twenty-one, and her
marriage had lasted for seventy-one years:
Her tiny cottage looked out over a wide
expanse of ocean, but she was almost
blind. I expressed my sympathy,

wondering what the secret of her peaceful
mind might be.

"Oh, it's not so bad, " smiled the old
woman. "I've had a contented life, my
daughter looks after me - and I can still
see the sunset."

THE END

INDEX

The index below is as it was in the original paper book but in this e-book the page numbers
have all changed and have therefore been removed. Otherwise the original index is left
unchanged to display the authors choice and readers should use their program's search
facility to locate the item.

Abraham (Bushman)

Adderley (farm)

Jan Agenbach

Alexander Bay

Dr. W. J. J. Arnold

Maurice Aronson

Orlando Bagley

Andrew Geddes Bain

Donald Bain

Major General David Baird

Baobab

General C. F. Beyers

Big Hole

Major Bird

Blue Point

General Botha

Robert Bowman

Breakneck Valley

L. R. Breytenbach

Briars (St. Helena)

Broken Hill

Dr. Robert Broom

Frank Brownlee

Bruno Buchner

Button-up Corner

William Burchell
Pieter Burger

Cape Frio
Cape St. Lucia
Cape Times
Cataract Island
Cedarberg
Centenarian Club
Chaka

James Chapman
Chitambo Mission

Chobe

Rev. James Chutter
Clanwilliam
Percy M. Clark
Frank Connock
Edward Constantine
Consulate Hotel

Sir George Cory

Mr. J. C. Pickersgill Cunliffe

Cunliffe's diary

Daniel (Bushman)

B. H. Darnell

Deadwood Plain
General De la Rey
Devil's Punchbowl
Napier Devitt
Dr. H. C. De Wet
Mr. Justice N. J. De Wet
Mrs. Ella De Wet
Diamond sorting

Dodo

Dolly's Chop House
Dolosgooiers
Rev. S. S. Dornan
G. C. Dry

Durbanville
Dr. R. E. Dunn

Earthquakes
Egg Island
Elephants

Lt. Col. J. Ellenberger
Dr. Maurice Ernest

Peter Falk
Fire balloon
Foster Gang
Professor Leo Fouche
Francis Plain

Gaberones
J. M. Gilliland

Gobabis

Bernard Goldberg
Reuben Goldberg

Great North Road

Greytown

Ewart Grogan

Captain R. D. S. Gwatkin

Major C. H. L. Hahn
Sir John Harris
Henry Hartley
Captain T. C. Hawley
Rev. Charles Helm
Dr. M. W. Henning
Herbs

General Hertzog
High Knoll fortress
Colonel H. Marshall Hole
Pat Hollindrake

Honey-guide
Hottentots

Humansdorp

Georges Imbault

Albert Jackson
Jacob's Ladder
J. J. Jacobs

Jamestown (St. Helena)
Governor Hudson Ralph

Janisch

Dirk Jasson
Jilongo

Commandant Jordaan
Corporal Jordan

Kalamare
Kaokoveld
Kebra-basa Rapids
Kelsey expedition
General Kemp

Kimberley
Mrs. Una Kirby
H. W. R. Kluever
Knollcombes
Knysna fire
Dr. Robert Koch
Dr. L. J. Krige
D. W. Kruger
President Kruger

J. N. R. Labuschagne

Lemon Grove
Lemon Valley
Owen Letcher
Lichtenburg
Linyanti

David Livingstone

Longevity
Longwood

Fernando Lopez

A. J. Louw

Mrs. Jessie Lovemore

Lufkin's Towers

Lord Lugard

Lusaka

Sir Thomas Maclear

Mafeking

Chief Makaba

Mrs. Janie A. Malherbe

Malmesbury

Sarie Marais

Susara Margaretha Mare

Trooper Gerald Martin

Miss Polly Mason

Joe Masurek

Angus McAskill

Lord Methuen

James Molife

Sir Leopold Moore

G. H. Morton

Mossamedes
Mount Eternity
Mount Pleasant
George Moyce
Msilikazi
Munden's Hill
Myrtle Grove

Nandi Bear
Rev. Paul Nel
Dr. Peter Nortier

Inspector Ogborn

Onderstepoort

Harm Oost

Mr. F. Oswell- Jones

W. C. Oswell

V. Pare

F. R. Paver

Constable Anthony Pebroe

Alan Perry

Phu Quoc dogs

William J. Pickerill

Pimental

Plantation House

Port Alexandre

Port Shepstone

W. H. Pretorius

Prieska

Pieter C. Pringle
Prosperous Bay

H. R. Raikes

Ramonotwane

Trooper Ramsay
Edward C. Rashleigh
Captain J. J. Reynard

Ridgeback dogs
Rinderpest
Rose Cottage
Rosemary Hall
Rumours
Rupert's Bay
Rupert's Valley
W. G. Rushbrook

St. Helena (Coffee)
St. Helena (crime)
St. Helena (fish)
St. Helena Island
St. Helena (nicknames)
St. Helena (people)
Sandy Bay

J. Scott-Brown
James Scott
Sechele (Chief)

Side Path

Sir Percy Sillitoe
J. Simpson
General Smuts
S toff el Snyman
Solomons (St. Helena)

J. W. Soper

South West Africa
Spanish 'flu

Mr. Kasparus ("Oom Kalie")
Steyn

President Steyn

Joseph Suskin

S. O. Swailes

J. V. Tebbitt

Telepathy
Teutonic Hall

Captain R. Hartley Thackeray

R. H. Thomas

Tiger Bay

Tobruk

J. P. Toerien

Tremors (Johannesburg)

Colonel H. F. Trew

Karel Trichardt

Tshekedi

Turtles

Uitenhage

Ukati (Zulu)

R. Macduff Urquhart

Nicolaas Van Rensburg
Cornelis Van Rooyen

Dr. F. A. Venter
Victoria Falls
Jan Viljoen

Vryburg

Mr. E. J. ("Pop") Warren

G. F. Weber

West Lodge
A. J. Williams

Wonderboom
Woodcutters

Yams

E. Zelle

Oupa Zietsman
Zululand (Earthquake)